The Pleasure of the Interval

Summer blockbusters are an escapist tradition strongly associated with the delights of cinemagoing, but watching the same blockbuster in a theater and at home reveals that escapism’s pleasure and purpose are more temporal than spatial. 2024’s Twisters (Lee Isaac Chung) was widely praised for its cinematic spectacle, suggesting that its charms were dependent on the big screen and surround sound of the movie theater. But rewatching the film at home demonstrates how central the interval of entertainment is to escapism. Going somewhere—to the multiplex or the storm-bedeviled plains of Oklahoma, where the film is set—is less critical to viewers’ escape than committing two hours to self-indulgence and self-care. Chung’s film itself demystifies the limits of cinematic escapism when a movie palace becomes an impromptu and ineffective storm shelter. Escapism isn’t a refusal to face facts, Twisters teaches us, but a temporary shelter against overwhelming realities.