One is an audience

Rarely has the name of my blog had a more literal meaning than last night.

The result of my experiment about going to see and review the French film Two is a Family, as discussed earlier this week, is that I was the only audient in the theater.

On opening night.

Part of that is certainly a commentary on ticket prices in Australia, which are upwards of $20 in most cinemas. Now, a dollar here is worth less than an American dollar, but that’s still higher than U.S. prices, especially when a lot of people are using services like MoviePass in the U.S.

Part of that is certainly a commentary on the decreasing habit of going to the theater, when home viewing environments are increasingly sophisticated, when all the movies you want are generally available with the click of a button through Netflix or iTunes, and when peak TV claims an advantage over movies anyway.

Part of that is certainly that it’s a French movie with modest artistic ambitions – in other words, populist rather than artistically significant.

But man, not a good outcome for the distributor.

That was just the one theater I chose to visit, Cinema Nova. It’s also playing at Cinema Kino and possibly a couple others. I’d like to think there was more than just one person in those other ones.

But … it wouldn’t surprise me if there weren’t.

Not a good sign for the health of cinema as a diverse form with a multiplicity of types of movies that might appeal to audiences, but then again, it’s hardly the first one either.

It was a pretty nice movie, though ultimately too broad in some spots. But I find Omar Sy to be about the most charismatic actor working today, and damn sexy, so at least there’s that.