Fantasia Fest 2020: ‘Minor Premise’ wields real science for thrilling sci-fi fantasy

American psychologist Abraham Maslow once described self-actualization as “the desire to become more and more what one is, to become everything that one is capable of becoming.” He proposed such a theory in his 1943 paper, “A Theory of Human Motivation,” detailing a heirarchy of needs in order to achieve true transformation of self. Filmmaker Eric Schultz ponders this principle inside his new film, Minor Premise, playing this year’s Fantasia Fest. With a script co-written with Justin Moretto and Thomas Torrey, the sci-fi stunner pulls directly from real modern scientific research, utilizing a factual base to hypothesize what near-future could actually look like.

Sathya Sridharan (Blind Spot, All the Little Things We Kill) plays Dr. Ethan Kochar, a neuroscientist whose father’s recent death hangs like a shroud over his life. In the months following the tragedy, Ethan hibernates in his basement, working tirelessly to fine-tune a machine (called R-10) that could eclipse his father’s creation (R-9x) and push the boundaries of human understanding of emotion and memory to the stratosphere. Ethan’s emotional state is already in shambles, and when he fractures his consciousness into 10 different states, in an attempt to reset his brain entirely, he begins to lose himself in all the regret, shame, anger, and sorrow he has yet confronted.

“Every memory is tied to an emotional section of our brain,” Ethan illustrates at the start of the film in an illuminating lecture. He speaks upon the pioneering work of Dr. Nishimoto, who, in the Gallant Lab at the University of California, Berkeley, was able to recreate visual memories from individuals watching various films. Schultz lays this groundwork in order to root his fantastical, Black Mirror-bent vision to a tangible reality.

Suffering from crippling blackouts and time gaps, Ethan barely keeps his personal life together, much less his profesional one. When he conducts the experiment, splitting himself into such components as “Anxiety,” “Creativity,” “Intellect,” and “Libido,” highly-concentrated capsules of his personality, he loses further grasp on what is real and what is all inside his head. He soon must rely on Dr. Alli Fisher (Paton Ashbrook, House of Cards, Shameless), academic colleague and former girlfriend, to guide him through the recovery process before the more psychotic parts of his consciousness consume and obliterate his world completely.

Minor Premise pounds the senses with throbbing heart at its very center. Sridharan anchors the film, switching among personality traits with distinct precision, a performance that’s gutting and star-making. Schultz works magic to haul you into the story, provoking you to engage with these deep scientific advancements and the implications it could very well have on our daily lives. 20-30 years from now, the film’s driving narrative might be our harrowing truth. As intriguing as the research is, opening up opportunities to curb veterans’ PTSD or addictions, as Ethan points out in his lecture, a wealth of dangerous weaponry could emerge, as well.

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