OH WOW! 138 pages and 1378 reviews. Deserves them too

Rating: 9/10 (14 November 2017)

I find it curious that there are two distinct groups for this movie. Group one hates to waste even one star, but will write reams about how awful it is. Group two thinks it is wonderful and regrets not having enough stars to give it full credit. There is a small contingent that found it "thoughtful" and gave it 6 to 9 stars. I am in the last group.
My better half hates nearly all Sci-fi. She tolerates George Lucas, even though he can't write dialog, but on the whole, she detests space opera, i.e., rip-offs of cowboy westerns with laser blasters and pressure suits instead of 6-guns and big hats. She finds them to be a waste of time and money – you know – 2 hours and 10 bucks gone forever. She did see this one, though I am sure she did it out of deference to me after I had insisted that she give it a chance. She liked it, not for the special effects or the "science" but for the characters, the acting and the plot.
My dad had an album called "Classical Music for People Who Hate Classical Music". This is "Science Fiction for People Who Hate Science Fiction. Of course, if you need action packed shoot'em ups, you won't like this film either. I can understand that. When I was a kid we would all get our quarters and go down to the matinée on Saturday and if a movie had too much "just talking" we would feel gypped.
I enjoyed this one. Part of it was keeping track of what happened first. Decades ago I saw a film called "Two For The Road". It was the first non-linear sequence film I had ever seen which was really confusing at first, but these days it's not such a big deal.
I did see one critique, which invoked "Fermat's Principal" by way of a criticism. I thought that was a unique approach. On the other hand, light has ways of arriving at the same point at the same relative time but at different local times. The lengths of the paths may be greater or lesser but as far as the actual photons are concerned, it all happens instantly because at the speed of light, time has a duration of zero. Is any of this relevant? As far as the story is concerned, not really. I am more interested in relativity, not the Einstein version, but the human version. The later is the myriad ways in which the millions of interconnections of neurons interact with external and internal data in concert with the personal tides of neurotransmitters that build an ever-changing model of the personal universe. This particular movie gives that (my) version of relativity an interesting and rather fun joy ride.
Is the story a stretch? Well, it is Science FICTION, so – Of Course It Is !
Is there a Stargate orbiting Saturn (or Jupiter if you watched the movie)? Probably not.
Is there a galaxy wide federation that has its center of government on a planet near the galactic core? Unlikely.
Is there a star a few parsecs from here whose life forms live on the inner side of a gigantic rotating ring that is 200 million miles in diameter x 100 thousand miles wide with walls on either side of it 1000 miles high to keep the atmosphere from spilling out into space the whole thing of which is made out of un-obtain-e-um? Ha Ha Ha Ha ha hack cough choke cough wheeze (etc. etc. ending with wheezing and taking a few deep breaths before saying) Oh help! Ugh huh ah - - - - - - - -
But you know what? I loved it, loved them all, not in spite of the "stretch", but because of it.
Oh yes, I almost forgot. I have to give it stars. I kind of hate this part. OK, only 9 stars because I had to see it twice to follow the time shifty thing. There, that's my plot give away. Actually, I ought to give it 11 stars because the time thing means that I had an excuse to see it again right away. Hmmmm. Maybe tonight I will get up real early before the Sci-Fi hater gets up so I can see it again.