The word ‘trust’ isn’t in the lexicon as far as my relationship with critics is concerned.
Instead, the operative word would be ‘insight.’
Allow me to contextualize.
I don’t peruse movie reviews prior to watching a movie. Ultimately, it is the primary reason I don’t seem to share in the rather antagonistic light several audience members view critics.
I do not look to them to answer the following question – “Should I spend my money on this movie?”
It would be prudent at this stage to point out that there exists a difference, at least in my head, between ‘movie reviewers’ and ‘movie critics.’ And it’s not merely a matter of semantics.
The former are the ones who attempt to answer the question I posed above. And the latter are the ones who dissect the finer details of a movie. They provide insight. And that is of great value to me.
I recently watched Tenet. It is a movie that engendered a plethora of mixed feelings within me.
After watching it, I have been devouring all manner of content surrounding it.
While listening to The Big Picture podcast, Sean Fennessey, a critic at The Ringer, touched upon something that recontextualised my experience of the film.
One of my gripes with Tenet was its utter lack of emotional quotient.
But Fennessey, who isn’t the greatest advocate of Christopher Nolan, posited that Nolan is a director who has always had a firmer grasp over his high-concept ideas than he does over emotions.
In his estimation, Nolan’s attempts to combine the two doesn’t always bear fruit.
But here, with Tenet, he abandoned emotion and doubled down on the aspect that he specialises in – he took his high-concept premise and ran with it – lending the film a singular purpose and a sense of propulsiveness.
While I don’t entirely agree with his argument, it did provide me with added insight and allowed me another prism through which to view the film.
And to me, that is of great value. And that is what great film criticism is all about, it opens a proverbial third eye of sorts. It peels back the layers of a film.
I ‘trust’ movie critics to do their job – provide insight.
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