Warming Up

8640/21559

I have never been too big a fan of Tom Hiddlestone. Maybe he represents the kind of confident and entitled public school kid that I encountered at University who just got everything they wanted in life and have no idea that that doesn't happen for most peopl or maybe it's because it feels like he's acting all the time, especially when he's actually acting. Which might seem a redundant thing to say, but when someone is acting too hard, so that you become aware that they're acting, then THAT'S NOT GOOD ACTING. I don't want to be impressed by your acting- I want to forget that you're acting.

For me he is pretty much summed up in this fantastic bit by Phil Wang (it makes me cry with laughter every time I see it). This advert is a nonsensical car crash but somehow because it's Tom Hiddlestone, you can't look away.

BUT I am a big fan of ancient Pompeii - which is probably my favourite place in the world.

So I was conflicted, but felt I had to watch Pompeii: Out of Time with Tom Hiddlestone. And I suggest you watch it too. It's terrible, brilliant, ridiculous, moving and Hiddlestone is acting being Tom Hiddlestone, which he does brilliantly because he really captures the way that Tom Hiddlestone is always acting. It ensures that every conversation, however light and meaningless is definitely completely scripted. And rather than letting the emotional impact of the tragedy affect him naturally, Hiddlestone acts the fucking shit out of it all. Tom Hiddlestone playing Tom Hiddlestone acting being moved by the death of a character that he has imagined is peak Tom Hiddlestone. The sincerity is so deep as to go all the way round past infinity and come out as entirely insincere. But that insincerity is so deep that it actually becomes sincere again.

But as well as enjoying Tom Hiddlestone playing Tom Hiddlestone, there is some great stuff about Pompeii in there and a genuinely horrifying visualisation of what the eruption of Vesuvius would have been like for the unsuspecting people who had to live and die through it.

They must have thought the world was coming to an end.

There are some great bits of nonsense to look out for. Tom meets a psychologist in a museum. She says "I'm not just a psychologist I'm a disaster psychologist."

At the end of the series she then says something like, "I don't want to be known as a disaster psychologist, I want to be called a survival psychologist."

If I was Tom Hiddlestone I'd have said, "But it was you who called yourself a disaster psychologist in the first place. You can call yourself what you want. Don't make out like this was my fault."

But instead he just acts like he hadn't already read this in the script and looks very sincerely/insincerely impressed with this wisdom.

There's so much going on in this though, because Tom allows the character of Tom to be a bit of an idiot who needs things needlessly and laboriously explained and makes stupid mistakes.

In the museum the disaster/survival psychologist demonstrates that the people of Pompeii might not have been worried by earthquakes because they were used to them. She shows what happens if you set off an alarm in the museum. People don't react because they assume it's a false alarm because it always is. Also because they're actors and it's in the script.

She makes the point very clearly, but Tim says, "So what you're saying is that when these earthquakes start happening in Pompeii, they ignore it, in the same way that we ignore a fire alarm."

The psychologist doesn't then look at him aghast and say "Yeah obviously that's what I am saying, as I literally just said and demonstrated that," and instead pretends that Tom has understood some very complicated concept and looks impressed.

Tom can also manipulate time and rewind stuff like I imagine he does as Loki in the Marvel films (I've seen one of them, but can't remember anything about it apart from the fact it was the first time I saw Tom Hiddlestone and I couldn't believe how bad an actor he was), implying that Tom got that role because he was actually magic (which would explain why they had such a bad actor in the role).

Also he occasionally magically appears to some of the Pompeii characters and gives them a nod or a smile as they make a noble sacrifice and they nod and smile back. As if he really is a god. They know that whilst they are actually being heroes that Tom Hiddlestone would be equally heroic if he was really being blown up by a volcano. Which he would be, because I imagine that even when he isn't being filmed Tom is still acting.

Anyway it's an amazing piece of work that will teach you a bit about Pompeii but also question reality. And it not only plays with time but with the mechanics of cinema. Whilst recording a closing argument, someone comes in to tell Tom he is needed on set. Like the bit he is filming isn't part of the film. He then walks to the studio, saying hi to actors and the crew, acting very hard to look like the kind of actor who knows who everyone is and respects them for what they are doing.

And he isn't even needed on set. He watches a scene that he isn't in, on a monitor. Why was he called in? Who is he? Is someone filming him secretly and all the detective stuff was never meant to be on screen? One of the actors makes a mistake and Tom reacts with embarrassment, but overstated empathy, like this isn't all in the script, which seems a bit unfair on the actor who makes the scripted error, who at least acts like he isn't acting. And Tom says it's a shame that he can't turn back time, even though he has been able to do so throughout.

I was left wondering what was real and what wasn't and contemplating how Hiddlestone behaves on the rare occasions that he is unobserved and the acting can finally end. I imagine he exhales and his eyes go very sad. But probably a bit too sad, like he still feels he's being watched and has to act that the man behind the mask is not the empathetic god that he appears to be on screen.

Still 5 out of 5. An essential watch. Just needs a version where Phil Wang reacts to everything that Hiddlestone does.