Gossip Girl is out and Normal People is in. As seen with the global success of Past Lives, films with limited dialogue and atmospheric montages hit differently for Gen Z moviegoers – highlighting a more realistic look at the ordinary moments of the every day that make life meaningful.
“Authentic,” “devastating,” “broke my heart into oblivion”... These are just a few of the ways X (formerly Twitter) users are describing A24’s 2023 hit film Past Lives — and this feedback is just from 2024 alone.
The film first premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2023 and is still making waves over a year later with international cinema screenings ongoing and a scheduled streaming premiere on Paramount+ in February 2024.
The ‘too real’ heartache Past Lives imparted to moviegoers was likened to Richard Linklater’s Before Sunrise (1995) and Michael Gondrey’s Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004), films which tackle the themes of fate set against the backdrop of ordinary life.
While not racing at the speed of fantasy or action flicks, these films embrace a leisurely stroll, relying on nuanced gestures and purposeful dialogue to unveil the rich tapestry of human emotions.
A quick Google search would categorise these films under the slice-of-life genre, along with Lady Bird, Manchester By The Sea, and Aftersun.
But a 2023 Rappler article calls them ‘quiet’ movies – a trend that is changing the way Gen Zers interact with media and entertainment.
In today’s social media-driven climate, clips from quiet movies are quoted, reposted and reshared all over the world.
From a clip of Before Sunset's Celine juggling feminism and a quest for "the right man" which has clocked 4.7 million views to an edit of Normal People's Marianne captioned "ME CORE! 'she's just like me!!!' that's racked up 1.1 million views, these sliced-and-diced videos serve as a witty digital stage for netizens to express their inner complexities.
With 45% of Gen Zers wanting a more “accurate representation of people like me” in storytelling quiet films feel more relatable in the current moment.
However, this wasn’t always the case, as revealed by a 2016 Reddit discussion about moviegoers’ short attention span for quiet films.
“It's really frustrating to me because it seems that it's a larger trend, and results in many movies replacing meaningful character development and good dialogue with action scenes in order to hold interest,” says _PETTYOFFICER117_.
But the global pandemic and the influencer movie overhaul flipped the script and changed things.
81% of Gen Zers deliberately look to ordinary people for inspiration with 55% looking to social media as the best source of “content that feels authentic to them” – suggesting that real content is in and aspirational is out.
These days, younger viewers seek depictions of real-world issues and content that reflects their everyday realities.
“[Gen Z] value media that reflects what they know about the real world, even while they prefer to see people that are different from themselves,” says psychologist Dr Yalda Uhls.
This desire for the real world doesn’t only apply to societal issues, but also to depictions of normalcy and a slower pace of life on-screen.
It's exactly what brings people to Studio Ghibli's nature clips on YouTube with one video garnering over 2.2 million views and counting.
Gen Z, masters of the scroll, are finding solace in quiet films, perhaps because in a world saturated with noise a cinematic whisper is a rebellious choice for those who prefer depth over decibels.
