Yesterday at lunch one younger fellow starts to tell us that he went to see Gone Girl and it blew him away.  He couldn’t get any farther before there was a chorus of, ‘Stop, No’ from most of the room.  Quite a few people have plans to see this movie and have apparently not read the book.  I read the book about a year ago and have no current plans to see the movie.

He really wanted to talk about the plot, it had sparked something in him.  I’m not sure how much of the finer detail I remember since I have read quite a bit in the intervening months but I could probably dredge up enough to have a decent discussion and find out how certain things are addressed in the movie version.  We would have been possibly subject to bodily harm had we continued to discuss the movie, though.

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I’ve kind of gotten out of the habit of watching movies in the theater, which is a shame.  It is a very different experience.  And some movies really deserve to be watched on a big screen in a big dark room.  In a shared experience.  A friend and I danced our way out of Jersey Boys awhile back which gave us the opportunity to connect a bit with our fellow movie viewers.

But shared sensations – film or print – can lead to that chorus of don’t tell me, don’t spoil it for me.  I still remember trying to stay away from the people who devoured the last Harry Potter book immediately while we, my boys and I, read it at a slightly more leisurely pace.  We wanted to savor this last encounter with Harry.

A little buzz, a taste of personal reaction is helpful sometimes.  It might lead us to read or watch something that didn’t originally appeal at all.  Or it might build the anticipation.  A delay in achieving the experience can heighten it as well.  I just watched Captain Phillips, which I have wanted to see since it came out, with my older son and daughter-in-law and we were not disappointed.

Have you had an anticipated experience accidentally ruined?

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