GUELPH, ON – In a disturbing development that has led one man to seriously reconsider whether these are the genetics he wants to pass on to his future children, local woman Sarah Russell has been accused of watching movies wrong, according to her boyfriend Ray Williams.
The incident occurred during a home screening of the critically acclaimed 2006 film Children of Men. Williams, who freely admits he has seen the movie multiple times, devoted the evening almost exclusively to monitoring Russell’s micro reactions “to make sure she caught the subtle nuances and laughed at the clever bits,” a routine he concedes looks “a little serial-killery.”
“If she blanks during the infertility news crawl,” he explained, “then the entire third act is pointless.”
According to Williams, the first sign that something was off came just eleven minutes in. Russell asked to pause so she could reply to an “important message,” but the room soon filled with the unmistakable chirp of a “Get Ready With Me to Go to Trader Joe’s and Just Vibe” TikTok. Matters escalated further when, minutes later, she got up for a glass of water, waved him off with “No, let it keep playing – I’ll be back in, like, two seconds,” and strolled out, leaving Williams to decide whether to let her miss thirty-two seconds of Alfonso Cuarón’s meticulously planned mise-en-scène or break the pause directive.
The evening took another hit during the film’s celebrated long-take action sequence when Russell asked, “Sorry, can we pause again? Nothing’s happening yet.” The request reportedly stunned Williams, who had bookmarked the scene on YouTube for six years and once used it as the emotional centre-piece of a speech at his brother’s wedding.
“It’s just hard sometimes,” Williams admitted. “I spent all this time setting up the night. I explained the context. I gave a pre-watch background. I even made her watch a short explainer on long takes, only for her to tell me she watched Oppenheimer via TikTok Shorts because ‘it cuts out all the boring camera stuff and keeps the story moving.’”
Relationship analysts say the couple may still recover, but the signs are troubling. “We see this all the time,” said Dr. Neil Tarantino (no relation), professor of Media Trauma Studies. “Boy meets girl. Boy makes her watch Drive. Girl asks if it’s based on Fast and Furious. Boy spirals.”
Sources confirm the 109-minute film ultimately stretched to 240 minutes after 38 pause-and-chat intermissions, including one break to debate whether the title was misleading “because there aren’t even any children in it.”
Williams, who spent the rest of the night awaiting Russell’s verdict, was quoted, “All she finally said was, ‘I don’t know, it was kind of a bummer,’” a comment that, unbeknownst to Russell, had postponed Mr. Williams’ plans to propose by at least six months.
When asked if she is looking forward to the next movie night, Russell cited scheduling conflicts with her new favourite dating show, Love in the Coma Ward.
