Brace yourselves, folks, because the prophecy has finally come true: Timothée Chalamet has just been crowned the brand new King of Clap! That’s right: Chalamet—who already blew up our timelines earlier today when he walked the red carpet at the Venice Film Festival in a stunning backless top, then offered some thoughts on social media’s role in our ongoing “social collapse ” — has now claimed his place as the Applause Emperor at the ongoing festival, where his new film with Luca Guadagnino, Bones And All , earned, according to Variety, 8.5 minutes of standing ovations from the crowd. For those of you who follow the cheer times in Venice – the only way to know which films are the best, or at least the best at inspiring weird public gestures that we have to assume must start to feel pretty weird at the 5 minute mark, correctly; — that’s the longest applause break we’ve seen this year. The ovation surpasses Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s Bardo (4 minutes) and Cate Blanchett-starring Tar (6 minutes) and totally beats Noah Baumbach’s pitiful, heartwarming 150-second response. White noise. And if the number of times critics felt like slapping one hand against the other isn’t convincing to you, rest assured: The film has also received strong remarks from the verbal side of viewers’ brains. The film – a “cannibalistic romance” that both Guantanamo and Salameh swear was not inspired by any of their Call Me By Your Name collaborators you might think of – has drawn rave reviews for its mix of gore and emotion. Of course, the hands of moviegoers in Venice are unpredictable. who knows what might happen later this week, prompting them to stand there clapping for even longer? Do you resist the urge to look at each other, hoping to get the signal to stop? Trapped there for a seeming eternity, hands slapping each other in an endless rhythm of ritual worship? It’s an exciting time to be a movie buff, for sure!
