We need joy and entertainment, whether it’s Taylor Swift or rugby – The Irish Times

Looking for joy and distraction in dark times, I rented a cinema in the Dublin suburb of Coolock on Friday to take my mum to see Barbie. I mean, when we got there and I realized that screen five was completely empty except for the two of us, I tried to convince my mom that I had rented it out. A trip to the cinema was a blessed gift for my 84th birthday. My mother had previously stated that she no longer wanted real gifts, she wanted “experiences.” At 84, I thought she didn’t mean bungee jumping or hot air ballooning. My thoughts immediately turned to Barbie.

This was her first visit to Greta Gerwig’s effervescent feminist masterpiece, and her fifth time because I love entertainment. The taxi driver wholeheartedly approved of our choice of film. He saw Barbie himself with his wife, adult son and daughter. They all had a wonderful time, although they had originally planned to see Oppenheimer. “Still haven’t seen Oppenheimer,” he said. “So do we,” my mother and I said.

The traffic was bad so we were a little late for the show. Gingerly rushing into the cinema as quickly as my mother’s dodgy knees and vision problems would allow, I realized I was still terrified of yet another time when I went to the cinema with her to see A Beautiful Mind in Belfast back in the early noughties . That time she tripped on the stairs while going up to our place and broke her leg. She was taken away in an ambulance and never saw A Beautiful Mind. In the movie “Barbie in Coolock”, we carefully walked up the stairs of the cinema and sat down safely, almost missing the beginning of the film. Even after five viewings, Barbie has not lost her ability to delight and entertain, and for my mother at first she was charming.

Joy and distraction. You’ll find it wherever you can when man’s inhumanity to men, women and children dominates the relentlessly grim news cycle. Some people find it in sports. On Saturday, a rugby-loving friend of mine was trying to shake off my long-standing ambivalence about the game. He was worried that by not taking an interest in Ireland’s attempt to reach the quarter-final stage of a World Cup for the first time, I would end up on the “wrong side of history” if we were successful. We went to watch the match at The Circular in Rialto, which was celebrating Oktoberfest and Ireland vs the All Blacks at the same time. There were sketches of beer and at least one person wearing lederhosen. My friend drank Guinness and I sipped an unpatriotic spicy margarita and tried to keep up with the game. I learned a few things. That the ideal shot at the bar is a “cut through the posts.” That the game of rugby has elements of ballet, chess and boxing. This Peter O’Mahony grows beautiful hedges. Even though we lost, my friend says I’m on a ‘rugby journey’ now. To my surprise, it is quite possible.

On Sunday, still craving joy and distraction, I went with seven other Swifties to see “Taylor Swift: Eras Tours the Movies.” -Are you going to sing along? – asked the American woman when we entered the cinema. “No,” I lied, worried that she was prejudiced against our film etiquette. “Oh,” they said. “We.” “So do we,” I admitted with relief. We sat in the back row because we knew we’d be dancing (and screaming, singing and possibly crying) for most of the nearly three-hour performance, and we didn’t want to block anyone’s view.

( “I was a skeptic about the sauna. It’s very hot, too hot. Too intimate. Too much. But no more’ )

I envy those who have not yet immersed themselves in the Taylor Swift universe, I would love to experience this delight from the first acquaintance with her work. Like my friend trying to get me into rugby, I want to shake up anyone who thinks it’s not for them. Most of these people are wrong. They have yet to realize that Swift’s narrative reaches far beyond her own experiences and forensically examines the tragedies, achievements and challenges that each of us faces in life. It makes the personal universal. Think you don’t like Swift? Go watch the movie Eras and then come back and talk to me. You’ll see a woman at the top of her creative game, emoting playfully, powerfully and publicly like no other. “I don’t know about you, but I feel like I’m 52,” I shout from the back row, making her song “22” more age-appropriate for me. “It’s miserable and magical,” I continued, and those words needed no correction. The catharsis was real.

At some point, I’ll be bringing my mom, not Swifty, to the movie to test my theory that this concert movie is impossible not to be moved. Meanwhile, the following month, as a second birthday present for my mother, I booked us tickets to see the musical Carousel at the beautifully restored Stella Cinema in Rathmines. This film first came out almost 70 years ago, when my mother was a teenager. Back then she had a dress exactly like the one worn by movie star Shirley Jones. She remembers my father singing these songs when he was a young man. It will transport her to another time and place. Joy and distraction. Search, find, enjoy. Wherever possible.