Our Daily Trailer: PRIMER

The Alfred P Sloan Prize at Sundance is supposed to reward films that focus on science or technology as themes, but usually it just goes to whatever movie has a scientist in it. So if you're making a mumblecore romance, have one of the characters be a scientist and you'll probably win the $20,000 cash award.

One of the few films to really earn the Sloan prize is Primer. Shane Carruth's brilliant science fiction film may be the most realistic portrayal of time travel ever. And it isn't just the science and scientists that Carruth gets right, it's the way the ability to travel through time impacts the time traveler. Even if you find the mechanics of time travel in the film baffling, the character stuff remains incredible, and that's what won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance that year.

This trailer, from the film's theatrical release, is pretty oblique. In fact, if I didn't know this was a time travel film I wouldn't have guessed it from the trailer.