Note: The last third of today’s newsletter contains spoilers for Phone Booth, a twisty thriller that really relies on its plot mechanics. If you haven’t seen it before, I would suggest checking it out first. If you haven’t seen it in 20 years, you’ll probably remember all of the things I cover today. It’s a fun movie and it’s only 81 minutes with credits. What do you have to lose?

Reader, what’s the weirdest movie that made you cry? Mine is Phone Booth.

It’s true. I used to toss out this trivial factoid like a party trick whenever friends and I discussed movies that moved us to tears. “I rarely cry at movies, but I cried at Phone Booth,” I would say, to which someone would say something like “Oh, that’s so interesting,” to which I’d say something like “Yes, I suppose I am.”

But reader, I’m too old for party tricks. I’m more fond of introspection in my middle age. So after 20 years, it’s time for me to look back and consider why exactly this 81-minute New York thriller made my 16-year-old self tear up in a movie theater.

Let’s answer a simple question first: Is Phone Booth the kind of film designed to make its viewers cry? Not really (which is why I’m so interesting). For starters, it’s one of the most 2003 films ever made—the ugly gray cinematography, the pointless voiceover introduction from an omniscient narrator, the abundance of flip phones, the mix of split-screen and picture-in-a-picture frames, the goatee and bangs combo on Colin Farrell, the mere presence of Katie Holmes and Radha Mitchell. But more importantly, it’s a thriller! I believe some reviewers called it “Hitchcockian” at the time, which is just a lazy way to say that it’s a thriller and it’s also good. Not exactly a tearjerker.

That said, it’s worth asking another question: Was it the pure craft of filmmakers that I loved? Not exactly. I do believe that Joel Schumacher is rather underrated as far as directors go, but at the time, I’d really only seen his two Batman films. And Larry Cohen (who wrote the screenplay) has since become a filmmaker that I really admire, but I didn’t see any of his directing efforts until many years later. So I wasn’t moved by the beauty of art or anything like that. That’s not usually my style, I suppose. (Sounds kinda fun, though.)

So could it just be the Colin Farrell of it all? Reader: It might be.

If you know me, you know that Farrell is one of my favorite actors.* But when I first saw Phone Booth—in a theater, mind you—I’d only seen him a couple times before. I may have recognized him from Minority Report a year earlier, and I certainly recognized him from Daredevil just two months prior (a film that I enjoyed at the time).**

Is it possible that in that moment, in that theater, I saw the future? That I knew this sleazy-looking Irishman would become one of my favorite actors in my early adulthood? That I saw flashes of the greatness he would display in In Bruges or The Lobster or even The North Water? Probably not. But now that I really think about it, the scene in Phone Booth that made me cry very well might be the foundation of my Farrell fandom.

Allow me to set the stage, if it’s been a minute. Farrell’s character, Stu Shephard is trapped in a phone booth because a psychotic sniper won’t let him leave until he repents for his many sins. And while Stu is no angel, there’s some gray area to his misdeeds. He’s involved in emotional adultery with a woman named Pam (Holmes), and though he hasn’t slept with her yet, he uses the phone booth to call her so that his wife Kelly (Mitchell) won’t see the calls on their phone bill.*** He even takes off his wedding ring when he does it. Pretty shady and worthy of scorn, of course, but you’d think this judgmental maniac could set his sights on actual adulterers, right? Beyond this central offense, Stu is guilty of things like lying to all manner of people through his job as a publicist as well as exploiting his young, unpaid assistant. Not exactly deserving of murder though, right? (I mean, this is New York City, baby. There are bad guys on every corner!)

Perhaps that’s why the film’s emotional climax got to me. Yes, Stu only cleanses his soul after he gets caught in a rifle’s crosshairs, but it’s genuine, and Farrell’s monologue packs a punch.**** Here is a man who’s no longer afraid to die, willing to disobey the mystery sniper’s commands as long as he can tell Kelly and Pam the whole truth and keep them (and any other bystanders) out of harm’s way. It’s the final turn in an antihero’s narrative arc, and dammit, it works.

Does it work so well that it should bring a sane person to tears? Maybe not. Did I cry when I rewatched it earlier this week? …No. But that’s the power of cinema on a young, impressionable mind, ain’t it?

*At this point, I feel comfortable saying that Colin Farrell, given the right material, is capable of being the best actor on the planet. And yes, I did include multiple qualifiers to that statement because I’m too chicken for a take this hot.

**Did anybody have a sluttier year at the box office in 2003 than Colin Farrell? He was in The Recruit in January, Daredevil in February, Phone Booth in April, and S.W.A.T. in August. And that’s not including two indie films in Veronica Guerin and Intermission. No wonder he developed a drug addiction.

***Kinda interesting that an actor who was in Minority Report a year earlier would go on to play a man condemned for crimes he has yet to commit in this film.

****My editor John said “This story sounds more Dickensian than Hitchcockian if you ask me!” (He added that Farrell is Ebenezer Scrooge here and the sniper is all three ghosts.)

Phone Booth is now streaming on Hulu, and it is available to rent elsewhere.

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