Feature - Spoilerific (The Dangers of Reviewing)

Spoilers!

A few weeks back I had the pleasure of watching William Oldroyd's Lady Macbeth at the Vue, Islington. Nice theatre. The experience was considerably enhanced by the fact that I'd seen no trailers for the film and knew nothing about it, short of a one-line summary and all the sinister connotations of the title. I was able to enjoy the story as it unfolded shot by well-judged shot, every character interaction and dramatic turn a welcome surprise. Nothing, in short, had been spoiled.

It made me think as I wrote the review - how do I convey what I enjoyed about Lady Macbeth, without preempting the story itself? By giving anything away about the plot, am I potentially robbing someone else of the experience I had - that wonderful cold-start viewing?

Keeping my blog entries spoiler-free is something I try to do on a point of pride. I've read certain other reviewers, who think they're being terribly cryptic in their comments, while giving away massive plot twists to anyone with basic powers of inference. I've also heard the film critic I respect most explode a movie's central story development, when even the trailer had avoided it. (The movie was Passengers, a passably good science fiction tale I reviewed back in December; the most intriguing feature of the film was that twist, and anyone listening to the review would have been robbed of the big reveal's impact.) 

So I make a big noise about giving nothing away. 'Trust me,' I've been insisting since last September, 'my reviews are 100% spoiler-free!'

Well I've been lying. They're not, not ever. Because in truth there's no such thing as a spoiler-free review. 

If someone tells me that a film is all style over content, my view is inevitably coloured from the opening credits. If they comment that the final act drops the ball, I'm anticipating the downturn. If they say that the dialogue is clunky, then I'm listening out for each clunk. It's why the easiest reviews to write are the ones where my enjoyment of the film was pure. That's when I can give the least away, bathing everything in glowing but vague positivity. Even then, however, I'm building a viewer's expectations sky-high, so that they might well come tumbling on the actual viewing. I enthused about Arrival, but not everyone had the same blissful experience. I loved Fantastic Beasts as well, while my cinema-going companion that day fell asleep halfway through. 

It all begs that potentially fatal question - why review anyway?

Okay, I suppose I'd better answer that or never blog again.

There are two reasons, I think - each backed up by the responses I've had since creating Filmic Forays. The first is that I'm providing a bit of a service for those who, like me (before I left my full-time job - hooray!), don't get to the cinema very much and want to know what they're getting themselves into before they fork out their ten pounds plus. Maybe that's the difference between them ever seeing Lady Macbeth or not. True, our views on the finished product might not match up, but at least I can give them a rough notion of the experience they might have. Then they can decide whether Get Out or Guardians of the Galaxy is more their cup of tea. 

To those people my promise remains - I'll tread as lightly as I can around key advancements in plot. 

The other reason is that having seen a film, most of us like to hold up our opinions against other people's to see how well they match. (I'm talking here about those who only read reviews after they've seen the film themselves.) It's great when I get comments along the lines of 'Your review nailed it', but possibly more fun when readers' opinions fly in the face of my own. My qualified liking of Alien: Covenant was met by one blog follower with 'It sucked. Sadly. Such a wasted opportunity', and reference to how no scenery was left because Michael Fassbender had 'eaten it all'. Thanks, Dave - your scathing assessments of films I quite liked will always be hugely welcome. 

It's all part of the great cultural debate - the cut and thrust over stuff that in the grand scheme doesn't really matter. And that, in this depressing messed-up world of ours, is precisely why it matters. The trivial has never been more important. 

So whether you read these reviews before or after watching the film, I'll keep on writing them. Hell, it gets me out to the flicks at least once a week, so that's reason enough. And yes, I'll put as much artistry as I can into avoiding those pesky spoilers. Otherwise Professor River Song will be aiming that banana at me.