Art Of Pretending

I rewatched Twisters by Lee Isaac Chung the other day before it left theatres and it really is just an epic summer movie. Once I left the cinema I was ready to go back in and rewatch it a third time.

The first time I watched this thunderous spectacle I recall going home with this urge of creating a new project myself. I sat on my balcony and began writing down a new feature film idea in a matter of minutes because I felt so inspired. (Mine is not about tornados!) 

Daisy Edgar Jones is the standout of the movie. Her character Kate, a young scientist, leads the ensemble even if reluctantly at first but quickly adapts to the fast paced environment the storm chasers live in. For one I am incredibly excited for her to step into the world of the leading lady in a ‘could be franchise’. Having seen her once at a premiere, it struck me immediately that she indeed had the aura of a movie star despite how shy she appeared at first glance. She has entered Hollywood and the big leagues which is wonderful to witness for someone like me who was absolutely taken by her performances since Normal People. 

Glen Powell, now seemingly Hollywood Royalty and crowned „White Boy oft the Year“ has also taken the world by storm (pun is 100 percent intended actually). For those who have watched Set It Up and Top Gun: Maverick a million times (me), Glen Powell’s role in Twisters is a natural step in his journey as a film star. The Texan actor embodies Tyler, the self proclaimed Tornado Wrangler, perfectly. There is something about him playing loveable assholes to perfection that one simply has to applaud him for it. He brings out hit after hit(man) and is seemingly not stopping anytime soon. I mean if big names like Tom Cruise and Denzel Washington gushed about me and my work I would also up my game indefinitely. 

Powell and Edgar Jones work perfectly together. Their characters’ opposing personality traits make their undeniable chemistry even more enticing. Tyler, the tornado wrangler and go getter finds himself infatuated with Kate, the scientist who decided that the quiet life should suit her best after nearly dying due to a tornado that is. 

Twisters really is a movie you have to watch on the big screen. I don’t want to come off as too much of a cinephile but the theatre experience for a film all about catastrophes is just different than watching it at home on a cozy evening in. The minute the film begins the audience gets sucked into the world of the storm chasers (see what I did there). I was glued to my seat which is a really ironic thing to say about a movie where characters get sucked into storms. Nevertheless the seats were shaking thanks to the thunderous special effects and incredibly enjoyable country music soundtrack. The audience was gripping onto each other for dear life and the adventure had just really begun.  

Next to the glorious anxiety inducing opening sequence another one caught my attention. The sequence functions as the climax, the make or break of the whole movie. An F5 tornado is about to obliterate a small town somewhere in Oklahoma. Kate and Tyler are on their way to prevent any further catastrophes. The two heroes had found a way to tame a storm with the help of science and a lot of optimism. It had worked once before but time will tell if the calculations were right and even an F5 grade tornado could be extinguished. The team makes it to the small town where hell has already broken loose and cries of help and anguish fill the air. The tornado is growing and taking everything in its path with it. The climax begins the minute Kate decides to face her biggest fear and run outside after helping everyone seek shelter in a nearby movie theatre. The Kate from the beginning of the film would have been reluctant to go anywhere near a tornado due to traumatic past events but the Kate now is ready to dive into the storm no matter if it means she won’t come back. Mother Nature had already taken too much from her, so trying to extinguish the storm is the only thought occupying her mind. It is incredibly interesting though how Kate never actually gives the tornado the fault for having lost three of her best friends in the past. She had always seen it as her mistake for underestimating the weather conditions. Our heroine ushers to the car that is loaded with the chemicals that could theoretically ‘kill’ a tornado and she makes her way through dangerous territory. The world around her is going up in flames but she dives into the heart of the beast. By now the audience is gripping onto their chairs, hearts are beating exorbitantly fast, everyone forgot their snacks and is just focused on Edgar Jones and her performance. Everything the characters have endured throughout the movie leads up to this point. Kate is preparing the chemicals whilst everyone in the theatre is holding on for dear life. Tyler is helping where he can but his head is somewhere else entirely. The stakes are high, the town is destroyed and the people are scared out of their minds. Kate is fidgeting with the buttons, her heart racing and no one, including her, is sure whether the experiment will work on a tornado of this tremendous size. The question is, will Kate wrangle the storm or will the storm take her and everyone else with it? 

Kate driving into the heart of the storm serves as a brilliant metaphor for the character and story itself. The young scientist is the heart of the story. It is her story that we as the audience are confronted with right at the beginning of the film. Story and storm meet in an insane showdown. Our heroine has had to battle numerous personal crises and the storm in her is verging upwards ready to ascend and wreck havoc just like the tornado.

The scene is simply phenomenal and it is even sweeter how we have a heroine opposed to a man saving the day. Kate is the one person who can save the town and the only one who can finally fix what had gone so wrong in the past. That scar which is wide open again can now finally be sealed. Tyler functions as her counterpart and as the person who revived the storm brewing inside of her. At no point in the film does he overshadow her though. What is also a nice detail that one wouldn’t have thought of is that Tyler knows his stuff. Having studied meteorology he can actually hold up with Kate most of the time. He enjoys the quick witted ‘city girl’ with her comebacks and doesn’t feel threatened by a woman more intelligent than him. The Tyler Owens effect should be studied because women flocked to the theatres to see this quasi ‘perfect’ fictional man played by Powell. Javi (another great character might I add) functions as the glue that connects the characters, but again at no point in the film does he outshine her. Her inner turmoil is what serves as the figurative heart of the storm and the centrepiece of the cinematic spectacle. 

What really stirred up the pot was that it was decided to cut out the kiss Tyler and Kate share at the end of the film (spoiler alert, but come on the movie has been out for a while). People, especially on TikTok, presented it as a lost opportunity because it would have made the ending more exciting. That is up for debate isn’t it? 

I would argue differently: it was indeed the right choice to scrap that scene and here is why. TikTok audiences have been known to enjoy smut and romance which in itself is not a bad thing but it does change how they view stories in general. If the only thing you are in fact interested in is if two people who experienced catastrophe after catastrophe kiss at the end of a movie then the purpose of it just flew over your head. Spielberg himself had said it would have made the film ending too cliché and believe it or not the multi award winning director, who has been a part of some of the most insane movie franchises even before most of us were born, is right. I would also just like to add that I am pretty sure this could end up as a franchise. A kiss between the two titular characters could serve as a brilliant argument for audiences and the TikTok folk to flock to theatres when the next film were to hit. In that case one would need to keep everyone guessing when that kiss could finally happen. Maybe the stakes could be upped and the kiss would function as a climax of some sort. The romance hungry audiences would finally get their PDA in a catastrophe film where the surviving of characters doesn’t seem to be the highest priority for them. 

I urge everyone to go and see Twisters because it really is just a spectacular motion picture. It was incredibly anxiety inducing and I don’t think I will be visiting Oklahoma anytime soon but man that was some good fucking cinema.