Jacob's Paradox (Short 2015)

Jacob’s Paradox: Directed by Michael Peake, David James. With Mindy Heithaus, Amber Lynn Potter, Amanda Miller, Nate England. In one tragic night, Quantum Physics Professor Jacob Matthews loses his wife…his everything. What he does to get her back will bring him to the edge of madness.

“Running to over 30 minutes long, this time-travel drama sees a quantum physician struggling with the murder of his wife – and in particular the fact that he was not there to try to prevent it happening. Early in the film we hear him speak of the paradox of someone going back in time and killing their own grandfather, thus preventing himself being born, and thus preventing him traveling back to commit the murder that caused him not to be born. Once we hear these few things, we all pretty much know what page we are on regarding this short – and it is a matter of u0026#39;whenu0026#39; will Jacob try to go back to save his wife, rather than u0026#39;ifu0026#39;.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eAnd u0026#39;whenu0026#39; is a valid question with this u0026#39;short filmu0026#39;, because it really does take its time to getting to where it needs to be. This is not in itself a bad thing, if it can support the time, but in this case it doesnu0026#39;t seem able to. The emotions are played out too slowly and repeatedly, and some of the dialogue scenes give too much description and airtime to things that could have been delivered with much more of a subtle touch with less. In the end when the film eventually does get to the time-machine, even the reveal and use of this drags out for what seems like 5 minutes; again totally unnecessary. The conclusion does come with a certain impact, but by this point I had really lost interest and connection with the story.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eIt is a shame because it is pretty impressive as a short in other ways, and they made a lot out of little money it seems; but the poor pacing, and the lack of really sharp material to fill the time does ultimately hurt it as a whole.”