LOVE LETTER | Odeon Silver Cinema Screenings

Odeon | Over 55's Screenings

Before the pandemic hit, I would visit my local cinema perhaps twice or three times a week. It didn’t really matter what was on; for me, the cinematic experience is compelling enough in itself that actually liking what is on the screen is a bonus. Sitting in a cinema allows you to pause your thoughts and life for a time, and step outside of the everyday. It is addictive. I miss the cinema. The weekly Odeon Silver Cinema screenings held at my local Odeon, have always been a highlight of my visits. Whenever my work pattern allowed it, I would make sure to be there. While the Odeon website details that these screenings are for ‘our guests who are over-55’, I am a good few years younger than this, and have always managed to get in (which might actually say something about how old I look!). The films shown at these screenings are a few months behind the contemporary release schedule, but at only £3, or £3.50 for a premier seat, with a cup of tea or coffee and biscuits, they are a real bargain.

There are two cinemas local to me, the Odeon, and a Vue. Both of these show a consistent schedule of mainstream Hollywood movies, which are generally satisfying, but sometimes I crave something a bit different to watch on the big screen as well. The Odeon Silver Cinema screenings offer a sort of multiplex cheat-code for a regional cineaste like me. Despite being a few months behind, the films shown by this program offer more variety than the up to date schedule. It was Silver Cinema visits that meant I could catch films like If Beale Street Could Talk, and Carol, on the big screen, when neither film had been shown locally on its initial release.

The Odeon is usually quiet, with screenings sometimes feeling like a bespoke service put on just for me. The decadence of having a whole cinema screen to myself is certainly preferable to sharing it with a row of people on their phones, chatting and not paying attention to the screen. But I would always exchange the solitude to share a cinema with a Silver Screening audience. Whatever is showing, the screening rooms are always buzzing and packed. It is only Marvel or Star Wars movie midnight showings that fill the cinema up to the same levels. Each film is introduced by one of the members of staff, who the regulars gently heckle. When they finish and the film begins, the real joy of these events becomes evident. Like a crowd watching fireworks, they make collective appreciative noises as every plot nuance is revealed. I do not think I will ever forget hearing 120 people ’oooooh’ like intrigued school children, as Emily Blunt and Matt Damon kissed in The Adjustment Bureau. If a film is less than good, and begins to lose the audience, a comedic pseudo-directors commentary begins as the crowd try to make sense of what is going on, on the screen. I have had to stifle many giggles, as the audience around me make a mediocre film memorable with their insight.

My local Odeon has been closed since March, following lockdown 1. It is incredibly sad to walk past it on my daily route to work. With the future of cinemas uncertain, and the target Silver Cinema audience most at risk from the virus, it is hard to know when one of these screenings might take place again. Though with news of vaccines comes a glimmer of hope; I can already smell the free cup of coffee held in the arm rest drinks holder of my seat, and hear the hushed chatter as the screening room begins to go dark for the Odeon Silver Cinema to start again.

- Oliver Carey