It's rather inconvenient that a violent, esoteric, 2-hour and 53-minute saga was the must-see movie of the summer just after my wife and I had a baby. But brutal first movies are bit of a family tradition: Mine was "The Deer Hunter" at 6 weeks old. And "The Odyssey" is oddly appropriate for our daughter, named Penelope.
So recently we journeyed to an Alamo Drafthouse's special "Baby Day" screening, where the rules and norms are relaxed to allow parents to bring their little ones, and after a series of misadventures, somehow we made it home alive.
Kira Lerner, a 37-year-old journalist, was there at the Washington, D.C., theater, bringing her baby Asa to his third screening in three months. At "The Odyssey," she notes, at least the dialogue wasn't
as important as in "The Invite," and we both agreed you got about three-quarters of the gist. "I was worried about my attention span in a three-hour movie and I felt like we both did pretty well," she says, adding, "he took an epic nap during an epic film."
Here's a rundown of my experience, which does indeed begin at …
12:01 a.m. Baby wakes up, Mom feeds her while I watch “The Departed” on my iPad and make sure Mom doesn’t fall asleep. Baby back to sleep 47 minutes later.
5:22 a.m. Baby is heard making scratching noises against her bassinet. Mom takes her out and then the baby goes back to sleep in our bed. We do not.
7:15 a.m. Mom is back asleep, so I get ready, go grab oat milk at Whole Foods, then walk the dog and give her a green dental bone, which she tries burying in the bed. That wakes up baby, who looks on, fascinated.
8:51 a.m. We race to dress the baby, make diaper changes and eat oatmeal and coffee. Mom packs the diaper bag: six diapers, two pads to put under her on the changing table, disinfecting wipes, two poop bags, one backup outfit, two pacifiers, one pair of baby-size noise-canceling headphones, one teether, one nursing cover, two umbrellas, one can of Olipop soda, one rattle that attaches to the baby’s hand, one medium-sized blanket and one smaller blanket with a stuffed dragon attached to it. She rushes to fit in a feeding before we go.
9:45 a.m. Done feeding, baby is transferred to the car seat.
9:47 a.m. Abort car seat, we need another diaper change.
10:20 a.m. We arrive and ask the ticket seller if Alamo relaxes its no-latecomers policy at the baby screening. Very much so, she says.
10:23 a.m. In our seats for the 10:30 movie.
10:29 a.m. We need a diaper change. We rush into the hall with our diaper bag and another mom directs us to the family restroom. A whirlwind of pads, wipes, trash, sink.
10:47 a.m. After the trailers, the movie begins. Mom starts off holding the baby. (Let’s be real, Mom will hold her most of the time.) Baby chomps on her teether.
10:49 a.m. Baby kicks her legs as horses ride down the beach, and she lets out her first peep.
10:55 a.m. A parent steps into the aisle with a baby and pats them as a server brings in a bowl of popcorn as part of the Alamo's food-service experience, and Tom Holland trains with John Leguizamo. There are only three other babies besides ours, two in car seats and one in a stroller, plus a couple scattered non-baby viewers who don’t seem to mind.
11:00 a.m. Penelope appears. Our Penelope eats.
11:04 a.m. Anne Hathaway slaps Matt Damon, and the baby jumps. But keeps eating.
11:15 a.m. Matt Damon seems excited to leave after 10 years on a beach. Baby is excited to sleep.
11:19 a.m. I exit to the hallway so I can sneeze without waking her up.
11:22 a.m. Back inside. The cyclops wakes her up. It eats a soldier while I eat chicken tenders. We put the baby headphones on her ears.
11:29 a.m. Baby sucks the teether while the cyclops gets stabbed in the eye. Thank God for the headphones. Mom helpfully brings out the stuffed dragon.
11:41 a.m. Matt Damon and his soldiers quietly exit the Trojan horse. Like me when I walk past the bassinet at 2 a.m.
11:47 a.m. Baby is on my lap, and during a battle scene, I can’t hear her crying. Mom can.
11:49 a.m. Diaper again. Pad, wipes, trash, sink. There’s a mysterious liquid dripping from the ceiling next to the changing table. Afterward, “Wonderwall” plays as I hold her and she grabs my nose, her headphones still on. Mom's thoughts on the screening: “I never have to do this again.”
11:58 a.m. Mom and baby are back in seats, so I go to the bathroom for myself. I return and Odysseus's guys are eating a strange food and a woman is putting her hand into their mouths. The episodic plot makes it an OK movie for when you're three-quarters paying attention – we know he’s going home and weird stuff happens along the way.
12:05 p.m. Matt Damon refuses food but the baby does not.
12:07 p.m. Baby back to Dad.
12:15 p.m. Tragedy strikes, and the dragon falls. Not in the movie – our stuffed dragon plunges to the floor. Of a movie theater. It’s done for the day.
12:20 p.m. Baby is fussy, so back to Mom to eat as suitor Robert Pattinson tries his shot at Anne Hathaway. Pattinson: “You can’t tell me you’re not tired.” Same.
12:24 p.m. Waah from across the room. Our baby squeaks. Another baby squeaks.
12:28 p.m. I take the baby out to the hall to distract her by showing her the oversized posters of “The Last Valley,” “Mo' Better Blues,” “Satchmo the Great.” Then back inside. They’re back at a beach.
12:40 p.m. Storm at sea, headphones go back on.
12:52 p.m. Matt Damon protects Tom Holland from killers like us protecting baby from germs.
1:10 p.m. During the flashback to the fall of Troy, Mom covers the baby's ears with headphones. Fires burn, buildings tumble, swords fly about and people die. But the baby stays asleep the entire time.
1:25 p.m. A suitor gets shot with an arrow. The baby awakens.
1:26 p.m. The headphones go back on for the final battle. Matt Damon kills one last man. Baby gives one last squeak. Credits roll, and we exit trading strategies with other parents on how we survived. We might not return until the live-action "Lilo & Stitch 2" in 2028.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: 'The Odyssey' baby screening was an epic journey but I came home alive
