Quirky, depressing, dramatic, horrid. Nowadays, many filmgoers write off movies with one-word descriptions like the above, immediately conjuring an image of the movie and having an immediate guttural reaction. "Oh, it's depressing? I'd rather not spend $10 on a ticket to be depressed for the rest of the night!" We, at Sassy Cinema, would like to take a stab at figuring out why people are so apt to minimize a movie to one word.
Is it easier to determine Friday night plans? Sure. We're convinced that when you're planning your Friday nights with friends or significant others, or just planning a good old movie night (those are still in fashion, right?), describing a movie in several words or less makes planning much easier. And of course that might be a viable and simple way to review a movie for friends. But is the easiest method really the best one? Does classifying a movie in one word truly capture the essence of it? Thought so.
Did one word in the movie stick out to viewers? This may be a bit of a stretch but stick with us for a moment. Some movies' main themes could, hypothetically, be summed up by one word of the following words: death, blood, revenge. And that one word is what our friends left the theater with … Okay, we were cringing while we were writing that. That answer is quite hard to swallow.
Maybe people don't narrow movies down to one-word descriptions to expedite their planning. And we're sure that a movie wouldn't be so blunt (in most cases) to restate its one-word theme a gratuitous number of times in the span of an hour and a half. There must be something we're missing.
Do viewers simplify what they saw into one word? It's possible that when moviegoers reflect on movies they've seen, they automatically narrow it down to one word. Viewers come out of the theater with just a few words in response like, "It was good" or "It was quirky." We sassily respond that, while many people do this, anyone who sees a movie can come out of the theater with at least a sentence's worth of response. We've never seen a movie and just had two words to say about it. Rarely do we see a movie and are rendered speechless (though that's typically due to cinematic genius).
The point we are attempting to articulate is that making sweeping judgments about movies translates into a slew of movies — wonderful, interesting and unique movies — that we'll miss out on because there were just a few one-word reviews from our peers, whose opinions we of course value above all else.
We contend that movies are so much more than that, and that it's impossible to categorize a movie with one word. We sass those who defy us and continue to over-concisely typify movies. To make a blatantly cliched metaphor, a movie is like a piece of art or even a favorite book. Each time you go back to it, there's more to see, more to analyze and more to learn. What we learn and what we as individuals take away from a film will be entirely different. But, nonetheless, that reaction or that lesson that we were taught will be longer than two words: we promise.
Challenge yourselves and challenge your friends to review a movie in fuller detail. Challenge them to expand their cinematic lens and to open their critical, sassy eye when they consume movies. Who knows, you might find "A Brave New World" to explore.
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Jacob Passy is a junior majoring in international relations. He can be reached at Jacob.Passy@tufts.edu. Alex Kaufman is a sophomore majoring in sociology. He can be reached at Alexander.Kaufman@tufts.edu.
