Movie Review: 'Minor Premise' is Clever Indie Sci-Fi

Minor Premise stars Sathy Sridharan as Ethan, a neuroscientist in need of a nap and a shave. Unfortunately, that’s not possible as Ethan’s latest experiment has fractured his consciousness into component parts, each acting independently of the other during their time in control of his body. At first, this is presented as Ethan blacking out of periods of time over the course of an hour. However, when Ethan’s ex, Alli (Paton Ashbrook) arrives, part of Ethan’s brain figures out what is going on.

Ethan’s intellect has determined that his blackouts are 8 other component parts of Ethan’s consciousness, each taking a turn to be in control of Ethan’s mind and body. At the start of the hour, default Ethan, as they come to call him, is conscious and in charge. After 6 minutes however, another part of his consciousness steps forward and Ethan falls away, failing to retain what happens during this time as a memory.

Ethan’s intellect is one of the components and has come up with a series of clever ways to document Ethan’s actions during these blackouts. The intellect has purchased cameras and set them up around the house, all feeding into Ethan’s lab. He also records video diaries for the default personality that are timed to start playing when Ethan’s default personality takes over. This is how Ethan and Alli come to discover Number 8, a dangerous part of Ethan’s mind that is threatening to overtake Ethan’s consciousness.

Number 8 is a ruthless psychopath that actively works to undermine default Ethan in his attempt to find a way to reboot his brain. Thankfully, Number 8 needs Ethan alive to achieve his aim of overtaking Ethan’s consciousness but there is a good deal of tension over whether he might harm Alli or, Ethan’s mostly in the dark project co-author Malcolm (Dana Ashbrook), who happens to drop by to check on Ethan just as Number 8 is in command and barely survives the encounter.

That’s as far as I can go in describing the action of Minor Premise and avoid spoilers. I promise that my description only scratches the surface. This is a terrifically smart low budget thriller with a terrific premise that it mines for suspense while crafting a smart sci-fi medical narrative that is satisfying even if the science is a bit shaky. The wired up hair dryer that Ethan constructs to perform his brain experiment is some wacky looking low tech that serves its purpose even as it betrays the low budget nature of Minor Premise.

The story incorporates parental issues into the Ethan's troubles as well as Ethan’s late father’s ghost hangs over his every discovery. Failing to reach the standard his father set at the same university where Ethan is employed as a lecturer, Ethan launched this crazy experiment with an aim toward showing up his father even as his father has recently died and will never see the fruits of Ethan’s intended middle finger.

There are a lot of elements at play in Minor Premise and co-writer and director Eric Schultz does well to let these elements speak for themselves rather than spelling out every detail. The start of Minor Premise is murky and off-putting as we slowly come to understand that we are viewing Ethan’s memories and experiencing the first of his blackouts with him. For the most part, we are with default Ethan throughout the movie but, the movie makes use of multiple aspects of Ethan’s personality to great effect.

I will say that I found the ending of Minor Premise to be a minor disappointment but it is not so bad as to ruin the movie. Minor Premise is still good enough for me to recommend even as the ending went on a little long and felt a little goofy. You can sense what the intention of the ending is but, for me, it wasn’t worth it and I would have preferred something more conclusive and less silly.

Though the movie overstays its welcome at the end, Minor Premise is still quite a good sci-fi medical thriller with two terrific lead performances and a clever conceit propelling it forward. By the way, yes, fans of Twin Peaks, Malcolm is played by Dana Ashbrook, Bobby from Twin Peaks. If you’re like me, you will see him and your brain will hurt trying to place him. I figured I’d better save you the headache and the Google search.

Minor Premise is available on streaming rental services on December 4th.