Summary
- Director Christopher Nolan recounts being criticized for his film Tenet during a Peloton workout.
- The Peloton instructor, Jenn Sherman, praises Nolan and expresses surprise that he knows who she is, while admitting that she didn’t understand Tenet.
- Sherman invites Nolan to join her for a workout and welcomes his critique of her class in a light-hearted response.
Acclaimed director Christopher Nolan has been discussing the relationship between directors, critics, and audiences, revealing that he was once chastised for his 2020 film Tenet by a Peloton instructor while in the middle of a workout. Nolan told the story during a speech at the New York Film Critics Circle (for which he won Best Director for Oppenheimer), revealing that his instructor felt Tenet was “a couple hours of my life I’ll never get back again!” You can see what Nolan had to say below (via Variety).
“I was on my Peloton. I’m dying. And the instructor started talking about one of my films and said, ‘Did anyone see this? That’s a couple hours of my life I’ll never get back again!’ When [film critic] Rex Reed takes a shit on your film he doesn’t ask you to work out! In today’s world, where opinions are everywhere, there is a sort of idea that film criticism is being democratized, but I for one think the critical appreciation of films shouldn’t be an instinct but it should be a profession.”
Written and directed by Christopher Nolan and starring John David Washington, Robert Pattinson, and Elizabeth Debicki, Tenet follows an agent tasked with working out what exactly is going on as he travels through time to prevent the onset of World War III.
Released during the pandemic, Tenet was delayed multiple times and remains his most divisive movie to date.
The Peloton Instructor Has Now Responded: ‘That Sh-t Went Right Over My Head’
Tenet
- Release Date
- August 22, 2020
Since telling the story, the Peloton instructor in question has revealed herself as Jenn Sherman, taking to social media to heap praise on the director as well as express her awe over the idea that he takes her classes…and that she criticized him to his face (sort of).
“Huge day for me, when I come to find out that the one and only Christopher Nolan, one of the leading filmmakers of the 21st century, knows who the hell I am. I was excited. And then I read the article. Listen. It was 2020. It was a dark time. I’m on the platform, teaching my little class, and I’m running my mouth off like I’m known to do. And I make a random comment about a movie I had seen the night before. What do you think the odds are that the director of said movie would take that ride some four years later? That would only happen to me.”
Addressing her feelings towards Tenet, Sherman says that, ultimately, she did not understand the movie (a feeling that no doubt many can relate to), but heaped praise on Nolan’s box office dominating Oppenheimer.
“I may not have understood a minute of what was going on in ‘Tenet.’ That sh-t went right over my head. But I have seen ‘Oppenheimer’ twice. And that’s six hours of my life that I don’t ever want to give back.”
Finally, Sherman invites Nolan to join her for an in-person workout and cannot wait for the director to critique her class in jovial retaliation.
“Mr. Nolan, I’m inviting you to come for a ride with me in the Peloton studio. You can critique my class. You’ll have a great time. You’ll sit in the front row. And I promise you it’ll be insult-free.”
Both Tenet and Oppenheimer are now available on Blu-ray, DVD, and digital formats.
