“Minor Premise” (2020) - Review
“Minor Premise” is a significant formal achievement, featuring a phenomenally engaging Sathya Sridharan performance. Director/co-writer Eric Schultz creates an intentionally disorienting and fast-paced ‘all in your head’ whodunnit where the suspects are the competing sections of neuroscientists fractured consciousness.
The neuroscientist Ethan Kochar (Sathya Sridharan) is the lead researcher on a project that constitutes a radical leap in cognitive technology. Collaborating with his father Paul (Nikolas Kontomanolis) until his passing - the machine allows subjects to access and playback memories. Plagued with regrets in his professional and personal life, Ethan is emboldened to trial untested memory erasure. The resulting fracture sees the dark segments of Ethan’s mind wrestle for total control. With the help of ex and fellow researcher Alli (Paton Ashbrook), he must attempt to pull himself back together.
Schultz and co-writers Thomas Torrey and ACTUAL neuroscientist Justin Moretto are doing their darnedest to make as much of the scientific logic sound for “Minor Premise.” And in many ways, the approach, outlook, and specifics of research, tools, methodologies, and governance of these discoveries’ intellectual property feel authentic - but it doesn’t matter. The breaking down of one’s personality into key emotional genres is entirely understandable despite its veracity.
“Minor Premise” rests on almost totally on Sridharan. Ethan is a man on the precipice of ruin. From our very early introductions, Ethan is in a form of self-isolation. He’s choosing a table with no other guests, drinking to numb the recognition of his father’s work, and by definition the distinct lack of articulation regarding his contribution. Ethan remotely teaches a dwindling number of students from the confines of his bunker-like office lab in the heart of his largely neglected home. Director Schultz and Sridharan are determined to show Ethan barely holding it together. This is reflected in his home’s dilapidation and the already frayed edges of his mental state as he either initiates alcohol or exhaustion related blackouts.
This isn’t James Mangold’s “Identity” the rain-soaked, “the killer is inside the house” with a diverse ensemble that eventually yields to be a fantasy playing out in one portly psycho’s mind. Ethan is breaking down, and when we’re introduced to the expressions of his personality, it’s clear that it’s the same guy, on the same ragged edge.
In Koganada’s incredible feature debut “Columbus” - he sets the table for two people who architecture has impacted provided either the scaffolding or the barriers for the lives that they want to live. Despite the high-concept, self-destruct scenario in “Minor Premise” Ethan (Sridharan) and Alli (Paton Ashbrook) find a connection in the shadow of the legacy of this great work and have been sent off course by its tremendous potential influence. While the movie stays anchored to this relationship, it is sturdy. Ashbrook is allowed to convey the turmoil of being compelled to help Ethan. The scars of their toxic relationship are present in every glance.
“Minor Premise” is a movie that works far better when you’re assembling the mess of the intentionally blurred reality. Writers Schultz, Torrey and neuroscientist Moretto try and chart a course back to a diagnosable event past the point that the audience needs to care. The more you learn about Ethan’s past relationships with his father, the more you wish you didn’t.
Effective, intuitive editing around a challenging structure, performance commitment and the wherewithal to utilise what one assumes is a minor budget to build out an expressive location - “Minor Premise” executes on a major ambition.
