28. COUNTDOWN TO OBLIVION: Watch a race-against-timer. Oh, the tension…

Before WandaVision and Agatha All Along, Jac Schaeffer directed, wrote and produced Timer, a film about a wrist implant that counts down to the day when the wearer will meet their soulmate.

Oona (Emma Caulfield) has a blank Timer, which means that her soulmate is not wearing one. Her stepsister and roommate Steph (Michelle Borth) has been told by hers that she won’t meet the right person for 15 years, so she works at an old folks home by day and a bar at night, actively being rude to everyone she meets so she doesn’t start dating the wrong person. As for their sixteen year old brother Jessie, his works immediately and he’s told that he’s to be with the daughter of their family’s housekeeper.

Oona meets Mikey (John Patrick Amedori), a much younger man who works in a grocery store and plays in a band. She decides to just have fun with him until either or their timers goes live, while Steph meets Dan (Desmond Harrington), whose wife died three years ago. She’s sure he’s perfect for Oona, but she doesn’t know that she’s falling for him herself.

I really liked the romance between Oona and Mikey, even though its somewhat doomed.  Oona and Steph share a birthday and decide to remove their Timers, but Oona’s goes off, telling her that she will find her soulmate tomorrow. It ends up being Dan, which causes the sisters to argue. Oona finds Mikey and tries to tell him that the results don’t matter, but he says that they do. The next day, she sees Dan running on the same track that she does and they promise to see each other.

I really enjoyed this. JoBeth Williams is wonderful as the mother of the women, while the idea that Oona and her mother both are attracted to musicians bonds them. I didn’t, however, like the ending, which seems to subvert everything that the characters have learned throughout the movie. Everyone is so likeable that I was rooting for something different; maybe that’s a mark of how good these characters are written.

You can watch this on Tubi.