Janet Christie's Mum's the Word - why are films three hours long?

And when is a telly not a telly?

This image released by Searchlight Pictures shows Emma Stone, left, and Mark Ruffalo in a scene from "Poor Things." (Atsushi Nishijima/Searchlight Pictures via AP)

Is it just me (probably) or are films way too long nowadays? Youngest Child and I went to see Poor Things and while the acting and visuals were amazing, I had to nip out three quarters of the way through for a rest.

“You went for a vape, didn’t you,” says Youngest on the way out.

“No, I’ve stopped,” I lie. “I went to the toilet, because there’s no interval. All the films are three hours long, and I get restless.”

“I don’t know what an interval is,” she says, “but that film was way too long. There are only so many times I can watch Emma Stone being sexually exploited by old men. Maybe that’s the point but it started to feel gratuitous. Creepy. I guess that’s what happens when men make films. Anyway she was good and I loved her outfits, those big puffy sleeves.”

What she said, (not about the sleeves, the sex) but having grown up in the Seventies I’m so inured to seeing young women being routinely abused on screen I probably wouldn’t have mentioned it. Gratifying that she did though.

Women don’t fare so well in Killers of the Flower Moon either, the other film we watched this week. Another marathon, but this time we viewed the saga of betrayal round at Eldest Child’s on The Big Telly, and he allows breaks, pausing the action on the gargantuan screen.

My TV is so tiny that if characters are texting Youngest and I have to press pause, get off the sofa and run up close to read them. If it’s a thriller like Vigil or Slow Horses, where you have to know what’s going on, this can get fatiguing, but it helps my step count.

“Well, if we get a bigger screen you can have this one,” says Eldest, during a snack break as we discuss who said what and why. “This one’s not big enough.”

“It’s big enough,” says his partner, who likes to have a bit of wall available for the occasional artwork.

“It’s massive,” I say. “And I don’t have a wall big enough. Plus I don’t like the telly to dominate the room.”

“It’s not a telly,” he says. “It’s a screen for gaming.”

Of course it is. Now it makes sense. For the generation that can sit for hours gaming, three hours is the blink of an eye.

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