10 Minute Time Machine
2017 · 10m · Canada
Directed by Charles Wahl
Genres: comedy, romance, sci-fi
Tones: absurdist, contemplative, whimsical
On a date with an engagement ring in his pocket, George learns that Lori has found a device that can send them ten minutes into the past. As past and future versions of the couple appear with conflicting advice, they must decide whether to chase fortune or protect their relationship.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
A time-loop rom-com that's almost clever enough to justify itself—the premise wants to be subversive but settles for precious, and by the third iteration of conflicting advice I'm just waiting for the bit to land instead of genuinely unmoored.
Wahl demonstrates formal control in the escalating choreography of temporal selves, and the film's meditation on romantic choice through sci-fi constraint recalls the structural rigor of earlier short cinema, though the tonal balance between whimsy and stakes feels somewhat unresolved.
The masterstroke is the decision to keep each time-displaced version of the couple physically present and arguing in real space—that single choice transforms what could be expository chaos into a genuinely felt geometry of doubt, and it's what makes the final decision land with weight.