Paleonaut
2017 · 15m
Directed by Eric McEver
Genres: drama, romance, sci-fi
Tones: contemplative, melancholic, tender
A scientist studying the first human time traveller falls in love with her subject, knowing success will separate them by eons of history.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
It's a high-concept romance that could've been pulpy hackery, but McEver refuses the easy emotional beat—the film sits in the temporal paradox like a knife in a wound, never letting you feel safe in the love story. That restraint is almost austere, which is either admirably subversive or aggressively boring depending on your patience for melancholy sci-fi mood pieces.
Paleonaut inherits the DNA of New Wave science fiction romance—there's Marker in the structure, a Kaufman-esque recursion in the premise—and McEver executes with formal precision, letting the editing and sound design carry the emotional weight where dialogue could've fumbled. It's a film that understands its own genealogy and trusts the audience to feel the separation without sentimentality.
The entire architecture hinges on McEver's choice to shoot the time traveler as slightly *off*—a performance or framing decision that makes her feel untethered even in close moments—and that single commitment transforms what could've been genre treacle into something genuinely strange and affecting on a micro budget.
Reviews
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