Friday, August 23, 2013

Being Okay With Being Alone

My sister is terrified to do things alone. If she doesn't have someone to eat with, she'll order takeout. If she doesn't have someone to hang out with, she'll stay home. One time she tried to go to the movies by herself, and the guy at the counter made a comment about her being alone, so she cried and went home without seeing the film.

Meanwhile, a friend in my book club said that she loves going to the movies alone. She said every weekend for years, after she dropped her kids off at their dad's house, she would stop at the theater on the way home, and it became her own personal time; a little ritual. She said it was something I absolutely had to try.

Even Matt has been to the movies alone. But for some reason, the idea was incredibly intimidating to me, even though I've eaten alone, and generally don't mind flying solo.

But I really, really wanted to see Jobs. And Matt really, really didn't. So I went by myself.


And really, the experience wasn't that exciting or unnerving. I went, I bought my ticket, I sat down in the theater. It wasn't very crowded, and I was early, so I sat and read my book and tried to tune out the "pre-show entertainment." I watched the movie. It ended, I left, and I had time to let it marinate before deciding whether I liked it or not.

The only downside to going alone is that there's no one to watch your purse if you have to go to the bathroom after you're already in the theater.

The movie was pretty good, though I thought it ended rather abruptly. It focused a lot on Steve Jobs' early life, and then seemed to gloss over the last 15 or so years of his life, and I wish it had slowed down a little at the end. Especially because those years contain the stuff I remember growing up with: the first iMac with the five fruit-colored exterior options, the original blue and orange iBook laptops, the first generation iPod and how it changed the way we consumed music (which they do touch on very briefly at the very beginning of the movie, but I would have liked to see more).

There is almost nothing about the end of his life, his famous keynote and commencement speeches, his battle with cancer. It just kind of ended at the concept vision of the first-generation iMac.

Overall, I thought it was good, and Ashton Kutcher did a really good job of portraying Steve Jobs. All of the actors looked eerily similar to the people they were portraying (they show side-by-side images in the credits). I would recommend it, especially if you are an Apple fan, though I can see how this movie wouldn't mean as much to someone who doesn't love the products.

Would you go to the movies alone? Have you seen Jobs? What other movies have you seen lately?