High concept blends well with low budget in The Infinite Man, a time travel comedy that makes the most of its limitations and introduces a fine young talent in filmmaker Hugh Sullivan.

Time travel movies are all the rage this year, yet none are quite as fun as The Infinite Man. Made on a shoe string budget with a total cast of three actors and the one dustbowl setting in Woomera, South Australia, the film stars Josh McConville as Dean, a scientist obsessed with controlling every facet of his life. When an anniversary weekend with the love for his life Lana (Hannah Marshall) goes terribly wrong, a heartbroken Dean creates a time machine to make everything right yet creates an even messier situation instead.

In The Infinite Man, writer/director Hugh Sullivan takes every time-travel convention and makes it his own: Groundhog day scenarios, multiple versions of characters, time loops… all are masterfully used by Sullivan in his telling of a unique romance were there messiness of love is made even more complicated by time-travel.

While the time-travel angle is its draw, The Infinite Man will be remembered for its heartfelt and intense love story. There is no doubt that working on a limited budget saw Sullivan put even more effort into his characters and their complex rendezvous through time (as opposed the VFX), and it’s an opportunity that worked to the films advantage.

Comparisons have been made to Michel Gondry’s masterpiece Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and they are apt. Love, jealousy, regret, tragedy, all are deeply felt within these characters, especially Dean whose helpless romanticism is matched by his imaginative intelligence. As played by Josh McConville he is a rather pathetic character but a sympathetic one too, whose slapstick clumsiness is to be adored.

In his impressive debut Sullivan has put a creative spin on the well-honed time-travel movie. What The Infinite Man lacks in size it makes up for in inventive, emotionally potent storytelling as a sci-fi, a comedy and a romance. That kind of trifecta is a rarity indeed.