In the age of boutique cinema experiences, Alex Casey pines for simpler times.

My enduring memory of watching Alien: Romulus at the cinema is not of the creepy AI Ian Holm, nor of the hallway of facehuggers, but something much more chilling. In the opening scenes we drifted into the blackness of space in pindrop silence, but my eye was instead drawn to the woman in the row in front of me, on a frenzied hunt for the perfect crisscut fry. She tilted her small personalised reading lamp (why?) towards the carton and ferreted about for what felt like 10 minutes, holding contenders up to the light like a diamond inspector counting carats. 

I wish this was the only time that luxurious cinema add-ons have hugely impinged on the moviegoing experience. Ask me anything about Tenet and I won’t recall a moment of the plot (Robert Pattinson… backwards?) but I will tell you about how the entire cinema was there on the same GrabOne voucher that entitled them to a free cocktail, pizza and dessert during the film. The aisles were busier than Piccadilly Circus, with every moment of quiet in the film stolen by a poor cinema attendant hissing “Negroni for Janet, NEGRONI for JANET” into the abyss. 

Other times, the toll of luxury has been less about the distraction from the film and more about the gentle humiliation of the filmgoer. Last year at the film festival, I ordered myself a humble cup of peppermint tea to enjoy during the flick. Little did I know that I was signing myself up for enough jangling crockery and silverware – tray, cup saucer, teapot, strainer, spoon, napkin – to host a solo jumble sale when I finally found my seat in the dark. Did I spill hot tea on everyone in my row? Yes! And then did I spill hot tea all over myself? Yes!!

Of course, cinemas must do whatever they can to make some extra coin these days. With enormous rent and huge distributor fees, the candy bar is where they really make their money. But I am also a dumbass who is prone to novelty and excess, and if you kindly offer me a chocolate fish to go with yet another cursed cup of tea during 28 Years Later I will say yes – even if it means that said chocolate fish will also quietly melt during the trailers against the side of the cup, soon transferring chocolate smears onto my fingers and eventually my entire face and body in the darkness. 

Maybe this new world of luxury, where a cinema also doubles a cafe and a restaurant and a hotel, is emblematic of a society where we are constantly trying to optimise everything in our lives, to the point where we rinse it of any enjoyment at all. Why have a nice dinner before the movie that you can actually see, when you could eat a bad dinner during the movie that you can’t even see a little bit? Why watch a movie under the blankets in your grotty bed at home, when you could watch a movie under the blankets in a grotty bed… in public? 

With the New Zealand International Film Festival on the horizon, this is as much a reminder to myself as it is for anyone else: just because you have spent roughly $900 million to leave the house and see a film, it doesn’t mean you need to act like you are the primary guest on a Below Deck Mediterranean charter. You don’t need to feast on confit duck bao buns, banoffee sundaes and three cheese platters to have a good time at the movies. Nor do you need to max out on mod cons like a reading lamp, a daybed and a blanket.

We’re all indulged as hell, and I’m not going to take it anymore.