It's a simple title. Time.

It doesn't tell you much. It doesn't really describe what you're about to see or think or feel.

Time. That's all there really is.

Most easily, and somewhat lazily, compared to Crash, Time is a journey through intersecting lives with each person on the ultimate collision course. They have common ground, of course, but each person is different and has had different life experiences. Together, they are waiting their turn in what looks and feels like a hospital. As they wait with each other, we not surprisingly learn that each one has a story. Sometimes, it's a trauma. Sometimes, it's a drama. Sometimes, it's practically a Sunday morning testimony.

They are different. Yet, in some ways they are the same.

In moments, Time feels like your typical ensemble drama. In moments, it feels like a strange little faith-based drama.

Heck, Time is a lot like life in that sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't quite get there.

For the most part, Time is a thought-provoking and contemplative drama played out in a low-key manner by co-directors Rob Horwitz and Roman Santa Croce. I doubt it's a market friendly film - it's too slow, too meditative and too lacking in the distractions and attractions that fill so many of Hollywood's releases these days. It may even be difficult to sell on the indie circuit with its low-drama, quietly introspective approach.

Written by Craig Nachsin, Time does an at times excruciatingly slow reveal as if there's a great effort in place to not give away its core secrets. If you're like me, you'll likely have it figured out long before the dialogue reveals it.

In a way, that's okay. It mirrors the characters, some of whom have things figured out and some who don't.

The ensemble cast seems to "get it," what's going on here. There's no high dramatics or unnecessary histrionics. There are simply people living into their stories - people like Lenny (Andrew Laquintano), a man living in a pool of regret and guilt over an incident that forever changed his family's life. There's the somewhat mysterious Peter (Peter Patrikios). There's Rick, played by The Wire's Brian Anthony Wilson and probably the film's most familiar face.

There are others.

I suppose in some ways their names don't matter, because Time is really a film where the ensemble matters. It's the connections and the interactions and the course. It's really about the course they are on.

William Simone's lensing is, much like all of the film, straightforward and devoid of gimmicks. The film's production design and costuming design, by Leonard Pollack, avoids any semblance of showiness in favor of simplicity and authenticity.

Time isn't necessarily a film that will blow you away. That may very well work against it as they seek to take it on the festival circuit, but it feels right for what's going on here.

Time.  Everyone has it. How well do we use it?

Written by Richard Propes
The Independent Critic