It was a joy to be back at the Edinburgh Filmhouse this week, watching a three-hour Turkish movie and eating a small pack of Jalapeño-and-Jarlsberg flavour popcorn. About Dry Grasses may have an unexciting title, but it’s riveting - a Russian novel of a movie: samovars and snowscapes, complex characters and clever puzzles played with the viewer. I wasn’t bored for a second.
The Filmhouse is Edinburgh’s main arthouse cinema - the place to enjoy the kind of work that never makes it to the multiplex. It went bust three years ago causing consternation - but has now been rescued by a team of its staff and patrons including Jack Lowden and Charlotte Wells, and some government funding. The building has had a modest and sensible refurbishment. There are bucket seats still, but newly upholstered in plush velvet, and sized for bigger bottoms.
At the Filmhouse bar, I had that old “are these people queuing or chatting?” dilemma. A chance to people-spot while hovering. Having recently read, on my friend Anna Burnside’ s Substack The Hairy Eyeball, a reference to “an ironic moustache” and wondered what that would look like, I was thrilled to spot one. It was thin, vertical, and twisted at the ends. The Edinburgh Filmhouse delivers!
Tickets were just £6 - half price - which makes it more affordable than most nights out. I went with my sister Susan, and we found plenty to agree and disagree with in the film - did the clash of the kettle and the cigarette convey a character’s emotion or should he have said something? Are men in arthouse films too silent?
Looking around the crowded room, I noticed we were probably about the average age or younger. That is a shame - and I found myself reflecting on the struggle some young people seem to be having in building relationships and wondering if they have tried going to the pictures?
The “relationship recession”
The West is in the midst of a birth rate slump — but as John Burns-Murdoch wrote recently in the Financial Times, that’s just the surface. Beneath it lies something more fundamental:
“The central demographic story of modern times is not just declining rates of childbearing but rising rates of singledom: a much more fundamental shift in the nature of modern societies.”
In egalitarian Finland, couples who move in together are now more likely to split up than have children - a sharp reversal of the historical norm. In the UK and US, relationship formation is falling fastest among the poorest. This isn’t just a lifestyle choice. Many are happily single, and that freedom matters, Burns-Mudoch mused. “But the wider data on loneliness and dating frustrations suggests not all is well.”
Social scientist Alice Evans argues that this “relationship recession” is because the internet - and particularly the smartphone - allow young people to avoid awkward social situations that used to be part of growing up. Fewer in-person interactions mean fewer chances to build charm, confidence, and social skills.
“If I spend every night scrolling or watching Bridgerton,” Evans told The Times, “then I’m not necessarily finessing my social skills.”
Men and women experience the online world very differently. Algorithms funnel them into different content, different opinions, often leading to different politics. In the US, Gallup found that young women are now 30 percentage points more liberal than young men. The boys are reading about how women are too powerful and watching porn; the girls are learning make up tips and mugging up on international affairs - or something like that.
The hours that teens used to spend circling each other in parks and cafes - joking, flirting, crossing lines and getting told off - were essential social training. It was often awkward - but we didn’t have the option to retreat. Homes were full of nosy family members interfering with your business and there probably wasn’t even a TV in your room. But it is different today - many young people spend much more time alone, online. When they emerge into adulthood, it’s no wonder that they often struggle to connect.
Dating apps don’t really solve the problem. There are many more men than women on them, and I am told that all too often young men are tricked into spending money they’re told will “unlock” more potential partners.
Not enough love stories
Evans argues we need more, and better, romantic comedies - love stories that celebrate finding someone and building a life. Maybe she has a point - there is something a bit disappointing about the recent trend for the heroine to reject the love interest in favour of a better relationship with her mother (Brave), setting up her own business (Cinderella 2021 co-starring our young friend the luminous Tallulah Greive) or a visit to the gynaecologist (Barbie).
But whatever the movie, the cinema itself offers a generous space for connection and a halfway house for a screen-based generation - watching something sure, but together not apart.
People of my generation and older usually have fond memories of dates that revolved around going to the cinema. It was an easy, open place to meet and there was something to talk about over a drink afterwards.
I once bought Movie Date Ken for a young associate and passed it off as Action Man, because I couldn’t abide the musclebound survivalist vibe of the original. Ken Watt, as we liked to call him. wore a cool T shirt, had flicked-back hair and a tray of popcorn. He looked as if he listened to indy bands and talked about his feelings. The cinema can do that.
So here’s to the revival of the Filmhouse - and perhaps, through places like it, the return to a shared social space where people from all sides of the gender divide can sit in the dark together and connect.
Totally love this Jackie. To hear the film house is back. Yey! Let's meet for a drink and a show next time.
But also to read of declining social lives, and it's all down to the bloody phones!?
So what you're saying is that these screens, that I'm using now too read and comment on an interesting discussion is going to be the death of us?
Are some demographics better than others?
I wonder if there are other ways to get people to hang out more, like sports? That used to be pretty social . Or demonstrations (oh they're illegal now), festivals - they happen abs people go right? Or are they too inibirated to connect?
I'm fascinated by relationships now you mention them falling behind.
I do recall that before I left home for university, I often went to see films with my buddies. I think only one of us had an actual girlfriend, it we also went to see films that may not have been “date night” choices - war films and Mel Brooks early films that were such revelations. At university, there was an on campus cinema (lecture hall) and a film series in the large theatre (I worked one year as the projectionist) and it was a mostly student crowd so often included friends. I also spent a lot of time with the theatre/drama crowd who would sometimes get groups together for specific films (I remember we analyzed the lighting in Romeo and Juliet (Zeffirelli). Post pandemic I’m taking advantage of discounted showings and often find myself getting private screenings of new releases!