Ten years ago, it wasn’t too uncommon to have not bought a cell phone yet. Even those of us with the ugly things spent most of the time shouting, waving them above our heads or climbing onto rooftops for reception. Now, the no-cellphone crowd has mostly dwindled to the “We just use our television to watch rented movies, mostly Kurasawa” crowd. Today’s cell phones are indispensible. You can watch Weird Al videos and listen to the entire Fugs catalog and play “The Secret of Monkey Island.” You can text message the friends who are sitting a row in front of you in the movies (but you might get punched).

“Timer” imagines a future with another one of those devices that go from unimaginably futuristic to absolutely essential quicker than it takes to say “Get pwned noob.” The device in this case is a thin, electronic band powered by a scientifically fluff process involving hormones. Implanted in your wrist (at a comically commercial chain store that screams “H&R Block” more than “at last my love has come along”) it counts down to the day where you meet your soul mate. Instead of going cheap and screamy and overcooked, first-time writer/director/producer Jac Schaeffer throws a rich coat of serious philosophy on the genre mashup.

On the day we meet her, Oona (the angular, well appointed Emma Caulfield) is supposed to meet her stud. She’s not wedding crazy or dying to get knocked up, it’s just — her timer’s going off! In a world where your ultimate match is set, everything else is a waste of time. So Oona hasn’t dated, because she knows it will end in a few months or days or years. No one dates. No one goes out to clubs to do Jello shots and make out and moon into someone’s eyes. There’s a blinking reminder on the wrists of the Timer-washed that you’re “cheating on someone (you) haven’t met,” as one character puts it. Oona’s frustration with it all catches the eye of a much younger grocery cashier, Mikey (John Patrick Amedori). He makes minimum wage. His hair’s hanging in his face. He’s in a band that plays songs called “Mom, I’ll Call You Back, I Have To Dispose of the Body.” He doesn’t have a timer! How dare he! To make matters worse, at home, her 14-year-old Beiber of a brother has just gotten a timer — and his says he only has three days before meeting his soul mate. He’s been betrothed to a girl he’s never met.

Finding love? Something tells you. Sometimes, couples commit to putting their romantic futures in the hands of authorities, like their parents, and their blind faith buoys them. Other times, our hearts tell us we are certain. Whether it’s a bad romance, a heart-stomping opus of savagery, a puddle-splashing exultation, a star-crossed, bittersweet never-meant-to-be or a cosmically destined fall-into-place had-to-be, we already have an app for that.

Ashley O’Dell reviews movies that aren’t in theaters anymore.