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favor: the reviews were good, but more
significantly, the word spread fast in the
town square known as Twitter.
If you can’t accurately call Barb and
Star an instant cult classic, you can
probably call it an instant cult favorite.
Even if the film wasn’t really a small,
secret treasure, it still gave viewers the
illusion they’d unearthed one. What’s
the harm in that? There has to be some
value in belonging to a club of people
who, from their respective caves of
semi-misery, are laughing at the same
thing at the same time.
But in the age of streaming, the
question of what makes a cult movie
is up for debate anyway. How much of
a pioneer are you when you discover
a new-to-you movie that’s available
for everyone to see? (And as physical-
media adherents will tell you, not every
movie is available online—and those
that are may not be accessible forever.)
There must be some element of ex-
clusivity, a sense that you alone have
glimpsed the genius of a film that the
mainstream world— whatever that
means, in this era of hyper connected
niche groups—has rejected.
Christopher Nolan’s intricate sci-fi
thriller Tenet was released in U.S. the-
aters in early September. Because so
few theaters were open at the time,
Nolan fans who could see it were part
of an elite group; everyone else was left
out of the conversation. When the film
became available to stream, in mid-
December, it began to find ardent fans
online—almost as if it had failed at the
box office in the traditional sense and
somehow needed to be rescued or re-
visited. What’s more, Tenet’s compli-
cated plot invites multiple viewings; the
suggestion is that you need to be part
of the brainy Nolan elite to even under-
stand it. Tenet seems headed for cult
status whether it deserves it or not.
Other types of spontaneous cult
classics have bubbled to the surface
on social media in the past few
months. In November, the 2012 film
The Impossible—starring Naomi Watts,
Ewan McGregor and Tom Holland,
and based on a true story about a
family of tourists who survived the
2004 Indian Ocean tsunami—quietly
slipped to the No. 1 position on Netflix’s
most-watched movies. We shouldn’t be ruled, or fooled, by
algorithms: Who really knows why a bunch of people start
watching one movie, impelling others to follow? But aside
from two simple explanations—curiosity about Holland’s
pre-Spider-Man career and the fact that a lot of people find
disaster films comforting—it’s not really clear why The
Impossible became a mini–cult favorite eight years after
its release. One hallmark of true cult films is that their
popularity seemingly arises from nowhere. In that sense,
The Impossible’s resurgence fits the bill.
Besides, the movies that generate the most chatter on so-
cial media these days aren’t always new. The Internet erupted
with joy when Disney+ announced, in early February, that
the 1997 version of Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Cinderella—
starring Whitney Houston and Brandy—would stream later
that month. You could write
that enthusiasm off as pure
nostalgia. But even nostal-
gia is a complicated emotion,
especially at a time when it
feels impossible to move for-
ward. In that context, return-
ing to a childhood favorite,
especially a movie that might
have made you feel seen
and valuable as a kid, seems
nothing but logical. And last
summer brought us a milder
but no less passionate glim-
mer of Twitter activity sur-
rounding Martin Scorsese’s
1993 version of The Age of
Innocence, which everyone
in certain circles seemed to
be revisiting at once. What
would Edith Wharton have
made of this tiny gang of
enthusiasts, fainting with
pleasure over a 19th century
love triangle? Our collec-
tive yearning for tenderness
and connection has no sell-
by date, certainly not in a
pandemic.
Can a movie like Barb and Star end up a true cult classic,
so entwined with our memories of living through a pan-
demic that it comes to stand as a symbol of it? Maybe we’ll
look back and recognize that it wasn’t really that great—
but at least it was there when we needed it. Amid all the
“Big-screen movie going is dead” discussions, we still haven’t
reckoned with what it would mean to lose forever the experi-
ence of watching a preposterous film with a group of people
all looking for the same sense of elation. If repertory theaters
survive—and let’s hope they do—in 20 or even 10 years’ time
we might see midnight “Movies of the Pandemic Era” fes-
tivals. We’ll need some way to mark our shared experience,
and to commemorate all that time—was it a year, a decade or
a century?—we spent alone in front of our TVs. △
The Age of
Innocence, with
Daniel Day-Lewis
and Michelle
Pfeiffer: a romance
for pandemic timesJohn David
Washington and
Robert Pattinson in
Tenet, now finding
its audience via
streaming
▽