I’ve made plans to go and see Dunkirk with a friend. The Elderbeast has also expressed interest in seeing the movie, so he gets to tag along. I want to see it properly, which means either ‘Xtreme Screen’ or IMAX, and there’s an IMAX screening at 7pm.

This requires some logistical effort. I need to leave work, get home to pick up the Elderbeast, drive over to collect my friend, and then get to the cinema by 7pm. I also want to eat before the movie, and parking is currently a shambles at the particular shopping centre we’re heading to, so I need to allow time for that.

In the end we arrive ridiculously early. We buy our tickets, tuck into some sushi, and still have an hour to kill before the movie starts. Naturally we spend the time looking at toys and blurays. Eventually it’s time to go and find our seats. The Elderbeast has been given some cash by his Nan, so he gets to buy himself some outrageously overpriced coke. The first thing I like about IMAX is that we get no adverts; only trailers. That alone may make it work buying IMAX tickets in future. I realise that this is my first experience of IMAX since leaving London. Consequently I’m used to the extravagant dimensions of the BFI IMAX which, I am told, is six times larger than the screen we are currently looking at.

In the end, it doesn’t matter. Dunkirk is outstanding. Easily the loudest film I’ve seen in a long time, and one of those rare films where the sound is as much a part of the experience as the visuals. It’s also unusual in its almost complete lack of character development: the characters are constructed entirely in terms of how they react to the events we see on screen, and yet, against all laws of screenwriting, it works perfectly.

I’m especially pleased that the Elderbeast comes away with nothing but praise for the movie. As an added bonus we’re home not long after 10pm: an awesome night out *and* a relatively early night. Win!