The relatively recent phenomenon of cyber-dating is merely an extension of such other tried and true desperation approaches to dating as newspaper personal ads or traditional dating services. That’s because the whole purpose of online matchmaking, at least ostensibly, is to eventually meet the person whom you’re dating across the net face to face. Unless, of course, you’ve told the voluptuous blond supermodel across the ether that you’re a muscle-bound doctor who saves baby kittens from the pound when you’re really a fast food drive-thru tech with a beer gut the size of a basketball. (Which, come to think of it, is probably okay since more than likely, so is “she.”)
In any event, face time at some point is probably an eventuality. This may not always be the case, however, as director Daniel Polster explores in his near-future, confusing cyber-soap “Save.” Edgar (Michæl Garr) and his wife Quing (Diana Shaw) apparently haven’t spent much, if any, time together. In fact, if the viewer isn’t really sure whether or not Quing even exists, they shouldn’t feel too badly. That’s because neither Edgar nor his older self (John Rogers) are too clear on the subject themselves.
There’s a memory fragment of a creepy little cyber-thriller here in “Save.” Unfortunately, Polster is never able to tease it out of this nearly impenetrable tangle of a garbled narrative. Flashy cutting and creepy imagery complement the cautionary themes that struggle to poke through here, but none of this compensates for the film’s nearly incoherent storyline. Polster would have been better off merely saving “Save” as a first draft and refining the film from there.
