Your Next Viewing: Eric Schultz’s MINOR PREMISE Delivers Major Cognitive Thrills

Memories are tied to emotions. They can bring tears to your eyes, a laugh or smile to your lips, a stabbing pain of regret or loss to your heart. If you could control your memories, would you?

Let’s take it further: if there were a program that could map your brain and control your memories and your brain functions in a way to change you, for the better, of course, would you choose that procedure?

Utopia’s Minor Premise will have you thinking about all these questions and more. This film is New York filmmaker Eric Schultz’s feature film debut, and if this is setting the bar for what more he has to offer, I cannot wait to see what else he can do. Schultz is the director and helped to write it, along with Justin Moretto and Thomas Torrey.

We first meet Ethan (Sathya Sridharan) as he is lecturing a college class about the technology I referenced above. He gives a very detailed explanation about the tech, and the goals that he aims for with the tech during this lecture, so you have to pay attention! Here is where things get even more interesting: back at home, Ethan receives a journal from his deceased father who previously worked on the tech, and after going through the journal, he thinks he has found a formula that will give him the breakthrough he has been trying to achieve. Or has he?

Here is where things get even more interesting: back at home, Ethan receives a journal from his deceased father who previously worked on the tech, and after going through the journal, he thinks he has found a formula that will give him the breakthrough he has been trying to achieve. Or has he?

The rest of the movie felt like an intensely thrilling mesh of elements of Cybil, Split, and Memento as Ethan has now fractured his brain into sections which essentially act as different personalities and cycle through at intervals throughout an hour’s time. He must rely on his colleague, Alli (Paton Ashbrook), to help not only differentiate which of his sections are being helpful but to come up with the sequence that will set him right.

This film was an excellent blend of thriller and science fiction. I loved the technology that Ethan was tweaking and the possibilities of its use. I was especially impressed with Sridharan’s acting, as he played each section so well; they felt like very separate yet related characters and he moved between each with ease.

If you’re into movies about technology and the question of ‘just because we can do that, should we?’ I highly recommend this film, but don’t watch it alone because you are going to want to talk about it with someone once you’ve watched it. Or if you watch it alone, let us know in the comments and we can chat about it!

Minor Premise is now available in theaters, virtual cinema, digital, and on-demand.