'Cinema just walked through the door!' someone thought, or maybe all of them did, without saying it out loud.
Martin Scorsese stood still for a second in the doorway, taking in the scene.
The bathroom wasn't particularly large, and at that moment it was practically full. Six young men scattered unevenly around the space, all looking at him as if they had just seen something that didn't quite fit with reality.
It wasn't the most common reaction, though it wasn't entirely unfamiliar to him either.
"Hey, guys, why the sudden silence?" Caleb asked from one of the stalls, unaware of the situation, still more focused on the conversation they'd been having.
No one answered.
"Come on, say something! I can't go number two in all this silence," he added, half serious, half joking.
But no one laughed.
Gaten had to bring a hand to his mouth, holding back a reaction that was dangerously close to slipping out. And at that exact moment, Scorsese slightly turned his head toward the stall, raising an eyebrow just a fraction.
The timing couldn't have been worse.
Owen bit his lip and gave a small cough, forcing himself to stop staring at Scorsese.
Jacob, as if he needed to do something, anything, moved again and stepped toward one of the sinks, turning on the faucet. The sound of running water finally broke the strange silence.
Scorsese started walking. He wore a white shirt, slightly wrinkled, with no attempt at excessive formality. His presence didn't need anything else.
He paused just long enough to take in the group again, his gaze settling on Owen.
"Am I interrupting something, boys?" he asked casually, his eyes then shifting to Tyler, who still held the camera, pointing it loosely as if he were still processing whether he should keep filming or not.
Inside the stall, Caleb, sitting on the toilet, frowned slightly. 'Who's that?' he thought.
Gaten swallowed, that uncomfortable feeling hitting when you get caught in a moment you don't quite know how to explain, even if you haven't done anything wrong.
Jacob kept his eyes fixed on his hands under the water, as if focusing on that excused him from having to react. Tyler and Eric were the same. None of them seemed willing to answer, more out of nerves than anything else.
Matt, at the urinal, stood half open-mouthed, staring at Scorsese without even trying to hide it.
All of them, in one way or another, were waiting for the same thing: for Owen to answer. And he did.
"No, no…" Owen replied. His tone wasn't his usual one, there was a faint trace of nerves. "We were just having a… metacinematic conversation."
The word hung in the air a second longer than usual.
There was a brief silence, more because of how unusual the term was than anything else, but Owen didn't let it linger. He paused slightly and turned his head toward Tyler.
"Lower the camera."
Tyler obeyed almost immediately.
Scorsese raised a hand. "The camera doesn't bother me. I've seen your vlogs."
The line landed out of nowhere, and before Owen could respond, Scorsese had already moved, stepping into one of the empty stalls and closing the door as if it were the most normal thing in the world.
For a second, no one said anything. Tyler slowly raised the camera again. He wasn't about to go against Scorsese, if he said it was fine, then filming was fine.
Eric and Gaten exchanged a wide-eyed look, then turned toward Owen. Owen, in turn, glanced quickly at Jacob, as if to say: Did Scorsese seriously watch the vlogs?
Thinking about it more calmly, though, it wasn't that far-fetched. His videos had been operating on another level for a while now: tens of millions of views, festival vlogs that were probably the most watched on the platform, even beyond the cinephile niche. On YouTube, his reach was, without exaggeration, massive.
What wasn't massive yet was Owen himself as a public figure. He didn't have that level of instant recognition with the general audience, the kind of fame people like Zendaya, Tom Holland, or Timothée Chalamet had. And much less the almost mythic weight of names like Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert De Niro, or Al Pacino.
Still, beyond that gap with the general public, which was closing anyway, especially once Good Will Hunting premiered, within the industry, the perception of Owen was different.
There, his name carried disproportionate weight compared to his fame. Not many people, at twenty-one, could say they had a film in Official Competition at Cannes, an Oscar on their résumé, an IP sold for millions, and above all, the reputation of being a creator, producer, and actor with real creative control over what they made.
The silence returned. They remained there, barely moving, as if any gesture might break something fragile.
From inside the stall, the sound of running water broke the stillness. A few minutes later, the door opened.
Scorsese stepped out with the same calm he had entered with, walked to the sink, and positioned himself right next to Owen. He turned on the faucet and began washing his hands, as if nothing were out of place.
"So, a metacinematic discussion, huh?" he said, without taking his eyes off the water running between his fingers.
He repeated the term exactly, but there was no trace of mockery in his tone, only a quiet curiosity.
Owen nodded. "Yes. About what cinema is, or what movie makes you say that's cinema, really," he replied.
"Oh," Scorsese said, with a slight interest barely noticeable in his voice. "And what conclusion did you reach?"
Owen hesitated for a fraction of a second, lowering his gaze slightly. "None," he admitted, with a short, somewhat uncomfortable smile. "I asked the question and then you showed up."
Scorsese raised his eyebrows slightly, nodding with a half-smile, as if the whole scene clicked into place in his head. The earlier silence and stiffness hadn't just been because of his arrival.
"And… for you, what does a film have to achieve to be cinema?" Tyler finally asked, mustering the courage. There was some nervousness in his voice, but also a clear intention behind it, he wasn't going to let that moment pass.
It was gold for the vlog, especially since he had said the camera didn't bother him, and when else would they ever have the chance to ask the Scorsese something like that?
Scorsese didn't answer right away. He turned off the faucet, dried his hands calmly, and for a moment seemed to weigh the question more heavily than expected.
Then he looked up, his gaze moving across all of them.
"What does it have to achieve for you?" he returned, gently, almost as if he preferred to listen first.
They all fell silent, thinking as if it were a very important exam.
The silence that followed was different. More focused. As if, suddenly, it was some kind of test.
Matt was the first to move. He stepped forward, finishing adjusting his pants, and spoke with complete seriousness. "Cinema is stepping into someone else's shoes. Expanding your limits… living something that isn't yours. If a movie achieves that, to me, that's cinema."
Scorsese nodded slightly, approving without needing to say much.
"Exactly," Jacob added, picking up the idea. "It's having another life for two hours. Getting inside the head of someone you're not and feeling things you didn't even know you had."
"Feeling emotions you didn't know you had…" Scorsese repeated, with a small smile, as if the phrase lingered with him. "I like that."
Jacob returned the smile, somewhere between nervous and happy to have received praise from Scorsese.
Gaten found the courage to speak. "For me, it's connection. When a scene hits you, and hours later you're still thinking about it. Turning it over in your head. That's cinema."
"If it hooks you and you want to watch it until the end…" Tyler added, shrugging slightly, "then it did its job."
There was a brief silence before Eric, who hadn't said anything until then, spoke with some caution. "Cinema is entertainment. Walking out and saying it was worth watching. No need to complicate it so much."
Scorsese turned his head slightly toward him. It wasn't a harsh look, but it was intense enough for Eric to straighten up almost reflexively, like a student expecting correction.
Luckily for Eric, Owen spoke. "It doesn't matter if what you're watching is fiction or fantasy…" he said. "If it manages to make you feel something real, then the film fulfilled its purpose."
"There you have it," Scorsese concluded, with a slight nod, as if that answer alone was enough for everything.
With his hands dry, he started heading toward the door.
Matt didn't miss the opportunity. He took two quick steps to catch up and extended his hand. "I'm a big fan."
Scorsese looked at the hand for a second, then another. Matt suddenly realized. He lowered his gaze, understood instantly, and awkwardly pulled his hand back.
"Ahem… no need for a handshake," he said, since he hadn't washed his hands yet.
Scorsese let out a brief, soft laugh, shaking his head slightly. Instead of shaking his hand, he gave him a light pat on the shoulder.
"Relax. I'm glad to have a fan."
He paused for a moment, looking at him more closely, and added with a half-smile, "Especially a promising director. You won an Oscar before I did. Not bad at all."
Matt smiled happily.
Scorsese looked at the group as a whole, already with his hand on the door. "I hope to see you at the premiere tonight and find out if I manage to live up to your definitions of cinema."
The responses came immediately.
"Of course we'll be there," Matt said.
Gaten nodded several times. "We wouldn't miss it."
"We'll be there," Owen said.
"Wouldn't miss it," Jacob added.
Tyler and Eric murmured something similar.
They all spoke over each other, with a mix of enthusiasm and lingering nerves.
Scorsese nodded, satisfied, and without adding anything else, walked out of the bathroom with the same ease he had entered.
There was a brief silence.
"Was that real?" Gaten was the first to break it, running his hands through his hair as he started pacing back and forth. "Did that just happen?"
"Scorsese patted me on the shoulder!" Matt blurted, still in shock, doing a small jump. "And he said I'm a promising director!"
He immediately turned toward Tyler's camera and gave two thumbs up with a wide smile.
"Scorsese!?" came a voice from inside the stall.
The flush sounded, and seconds later the door opened. Caleb stepped out with his eyes wide open, looking at everyone like he had just missed the event of the century.
"The one and only!" Eric confirmed, nodding several times, still half in disbelief.
Caleb put his hands on his head. "Good thing I didn't come out…" he muttered to himself.
He had heard the stranger's voice from inside the stall, and from the way his friends had suddenly gone respectful and tense, he instantly understood it had to be someone important. He hadn't imagined that important. So staying inside had been the best possible decision, especially considering the comment he'd made just a few seconds earlier about how he couldn't take a shit if it was quiet.
"My answer was the one he liked the most," Jacob said, with a crooked smile, clearly satisfied.
"Excuse me?" Matt turned sharply toward him, somewhere between offended and amused. "You jumped on mine and changed two words."
"I improved it," Jacob replied with a slight smile and a shrug.
"You recycled it," Matt corrected, pointing at him. "That's different."
"I made it deeper."
"You added adjectives."
"I gave it soul."
Matt sighed, defeated. "Fine, you win."
Tyler let out a low laugh behind the camera, and the others followed almost immediately.
"Anyway… we talked to Scorsese, man! We're in Cannes, baby!" Matt exclaimed, bouncing slightly as he gave Owen a couple of pats on the shoulder.
They kept talking about it while Caleb asked for details and washed his hands. And right then, the door opened.
They all turned their heads almost in sync, as if expecting another legend to walk in.
But no.
It was a young guy. Slim, with fine features, light blond hair slightly curly, falling in a deliberately messy but styled way. He was wearing something that, for a second, threw everyone off: a kind of silver, asymmetrical piece crossing his torso and leaving one shoulder completely bare, paired with elegant black trousers. Everything about it felt deliberately artistic.
The contrast with the bathroom, and with what Owen and the others were wearing, was immediate.
There was a split second of silence.
Some of them exchanged quick glances. Eric frowned slightly. Gaten blinked twice, processing. Matt tilted his head a little, as if evaluating whether he had understood what he was seeing.
It wasn't mockery. It was confusion.
But it didn't last long.
Because almost at the same time, as if they all remembered where they were, they composed themselves. Cannes. Industry. Weird people. Weird styles. All normal.
Tyler cleared his throat lightly. Eric adjusted his shirt. Matt looked down, fixing his jacket sleeve as if nothing had happened. Owen checked his watch for a second, casually.
The guy walked past them without saying anything, though slightly tense at feeling so many eyes on him. For a brief moment, he recognized two of them, Jacob and Owen. He didn't say anything, but it showed in the way he briefly looked away before continuing on.
Owen was the first to step out. The others followed.
Outside, as expected, the girls still hadn't come out. Even after everything, talking to Scorsese, staying behind to comment on it, they were still taking a bit longer.
When Jenna, Emma, and the rest finally came out of the women's bathroom, they found them all talking at once, with obvious energy, and repeating a name impossible to ignore.
"Wait, wait…" Emma said, raising a hand. "What happened?"
Matt started telling the short anecdote. Others jumped in, adding details or how they had experienced it.
As they reconstructed the scene, several eyes widened more and more.
Amid that chaos of overlapping voices, Jenna stayed looking at Owen, with a smile, clearly amused.
"What?" Owen asked, narrowing his eyes slightly, sensing something.
"Did you seriously say 'metacinematic discussion' to Scorsese?" Jenna said, unable to hide her amusement.
Owen made a face and, almost without thinking, placed a hand on her waist and gently, but firmly, pulled her closer.
"Any problem?" he asked.
"No, no…" Jenna replied, still smiling, holding his gaze. "It's just that it sounds like a very academic word for someone who got expelled from college."
"It was the first thing that came to mind," Owen shot back, shrugging slightly. "I wasn't trying to sound intellectual. Just explaining that we were talking about what cinema is. Meta, the concept, analyzing it from the outside."
Jenna let out a laugh and covered her mouth with her hand. "I would've loved to see that…" she murmured. "You must've looked so weird, all nervous."
Owen leaned slightly closer to her. "Stop laughing."
"Make me," Jenna replied, staring at him, a mix of challenge and playfulness in her eyes.
Owen smiled faintly and kissed her.
She didn't hesitate to kiss him back, bringing a hand up to his cheek while the noise around them continued.
Sarah, a bit excited now that it had sunk in they were in Cannes, and that running into legendary figures like Martin Scorsese wasn't exactly unlikely, noticed the gesture between Owen and Jenna.
She watched them for a second longer than necessary and couldn't help but frown slightly, not so much out of clear disapproval, but from that quiet discomfort of seeing your brother making out with his girlfriend, and that girlfriend being Jenna Ortega.
Maya, Ethan's daughter, also shifted her gaze toward them. After all, they were one of the couples of the moment: they had gone public not long ago, and in a pretty big way, and now, in Cannes, their second major event, they didn't seem to have any intention of keeping a low profile. Seeing them kiss so naturally, as if nothing else around them really mattered, was striking.
"Alright!" Emma said, raising her voice just enough to get everyone's attention back. "Then it's settled: we're going to see Killers of the Flower Moon."
She said it while looking especially at Eric, Gaten, and Tyler.
It was the big premiere of the night. The new film by Scorsese, world premiere at Cannes, 10:15 PM at the main theater.
They had already talked about it earlier: watch something in the afternoon and, at night, go to one of the big ones.
But this film came with something that had caught everyone's attention beforehand:
A runtime of three hours and twenty-six minutes.
A crime drama set in the 1920s, about the murders in the Osage Nation following the discovery of oil on their land, and the beginning of the FBI investigation. Based on the book by David Grann, with a cast that carried weight on its own: Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert De Niro, Jesse Plemons, Brendan Fraser, among others.
If it started at 10:15 PM, between cast arrival, applause, and presentation, the film would probably begin closer to 10:30. That easily pushed it to around two in the morning. And after that would come the Q&A, more applause, the whole ritual.
Not exactly the ideal plan for everyone.
"Of course we're going!" Tyler exclaimed, raising a hand as if he were accepting a mission.
"We can't go back on our word!" Eric added, nodding firmly. They had said it to Scorsese, and even if the chances of running into him again were low, they weren't going to be the kind of people who say something and don't follow through.
Gaten looked at them for a second, resigned but smiling.
"Three and a half hours…" he muttered. "It better be real cinema."
The group had dinner together and, after that, each went back to their rooms to get ready for the premiere, the night, and everything that was coming.
Owen was in the penthouse. He was already changed, wearing cologne, completely ready. Sitting on a wide, elegant armchair, he waited for Jenna, who was in the shower.
A very long shower.
He didn't have his phone on him. He just waited, somewhat lost in his thoughts, his finger tapping lightly against his leg in a steady rhythm.
He was thinking about what had happened with Scorsese, but no longer from the perspective of a fan. From somewhere else. About what he had said to Matt when he patted his shoulder.
That Matt had won an Oscar before him.
At first, the idea had seemed absurd.
How could Scorsese not have an Oscar?
And then he remembered. This wasn't his original world. Many of the films he knew simply didn't exist here.
Even so, Scorsese was still a legendary figure. In fact, just like in his other life, he was still one of the living directors with the most Oscar nominations. Only the path had been different.
In his past life, he had nine nominations for Best Director and one win with The Departed (2007), a great film with Leonardo DiCaprio and Matt Damon. But that film, here, didn't exist, Owen had seen it in his first life.
It wasn't the only absence. The Wolf of Wall Street and Taxi Driver didn't exist either.
That, in theory, in this world, should have reduced his presence at the awards.
But it didn't.
Scorsese had made other films in their place, achieving even more nominations in this reality: ten in total.
Four of those films hadn't existed in Owen's past life. And since arriving in this new life, he had seen two of them. Very good. He still had the other two pending.
Where the story did change was in the result. Out of those ten nominations, Martin Scorsese hadn't won a single one.
And now, with Killers of the Flower Moon, everything pointed to an eleventh. Another chance. Another run toward that statuette that not only he wanted, but that practically the entire industry, and a large part of the public, felt he had been owed for years.
Many were already saying it outright: this could be his film.
It was something similar to what happened with Leonardo DiCaprio and his Oscar for The Revenant. That moment when the conversation stopped being if he deserves it and became when are they going to give it to him.
But Scorsese's case was a bit more extreme.
Because DiCaprio had achieved it on his sixth nomination. Scorsese, on the other hand, was already at ten without a single win. And he wasn't just any director, he was, in this reality, the living director with the most Oscar nominations in that category, even surpassing Steven Spielberg. In history, he was only behind William Wyler, who had reached twelve nominations.
The difference was clear.
Wyler had statuettes. Spielberg did too. Every name in that conversation had won.
Scorsese hadn't. That turned each new film of his into something more than just a release. It was almost a cumulative event. A quiet pressure that kept building year after year.
So Killers of the Flower Moon wasn't just another movie. It had a massive cast and a budget hovering around $200 million, some estimates even pushed it to $215, not counting marketing, which likely raised the stakes even further.
'Two hundred million… that's like fifteen Good Will Hunting,' Owen thought, impressed.
The irony was obvious. Because his film, Good Will Hunting, could end up being the year's biggest competitor against Scorsese's.
Owen and Derek knew the potential they had in their hands. And Owen, in particular, had a reference no one else did: he knew what that story could provoke. In his other life, that film had earned nine Oscar nominations, including Best Picture and Best Director.
Also, much more accessible to general audiences, therefore with more commercial potential than Killers of the Flower Moon.
If it managed to make a strong impact at Cannes here, it would have a more powerful combination than the original 1997 version.
'Oh no… I could be the obstacle,' Owen thought.
He could become the unexpected barrier in Scorsese's path toward that Oscar everyone wanted to see him win.
Because, for now, there was no other clear competitor.
Owen didn't yet know how the season would unfold. Months remained. There were projects coming and plenty of unknowns. One of the few films that caught his attention was Oppenheimer, directed by Christopher Nolan and starring Cillian Murphy.
But that was the thing, it was an unknown. It would be released in July, there were no reviews yet, and Nolan was coming off Tenet, which hadn't been particularly strong in awards.
His mind drifted to another scenario. A more distant one.
In the hypothetical case that Scorsese lost again, because the nomination seemed inevitable, the eleventh, what would happen next?
Owen imagined himself making the decision to work with Scorsese. Not on just any project, but on one of those scripts he knew, stories that, in his other life, had defined careers and marked generations. Material with enough weight to finally push that elusive win.
That would be Scorsese's twelfth nomination, tying the historical record of the legendary William Wyler.
And this time, Scorsese winning.
And of course, Owen wouldn't just be the writer, he'd also be the lead actor. The narrative would be incredibly powerful.
That, without a doubt, would be cinema.
"Why so thoughtful?" Jenna asked.
Owen looked up. He hadn't even noticed when she had come out of the bathroom. She was standing in front of him, her hair damp, wearing a robe, still wrapped in the lingering steam from the shower.
"I was turning to stone waiting for you," he said, getting to his feet.
Jenna gave him a light kick on the ankle. "Don't exaggerate, I didn't take that long."
"That's debatable…" Owen replied with a faint smile. "Will we make it on time?"
Jenna wasn't even dressed yet. No makeup, no visible preparation. Just fresh out of the shower. "Of course. Who do you think you're talking to? I have everything calculated. The outfit is already decided, so I won't take long. Now go to the bathroom."
Owen raised an eyebrow. "Excuse me?"
"I don't want you to see me getting dressed. It has to be a surprise," Jenna said, gently pushing him with her hand.
Owen let out a small laugh. "Alright, but I'm not going to the bathroom. I prefer the balcony."
Without waiting for a response, he walked over.
When he stepped outside, Jenna closed the door and drew the curtains, making sure there was no way he could look inside.
She was right, they made it on time. The screening felt completely different from Monster, which they had watched a few hours earlier. This was the premiere. The big night.
The theater carried a different kind of energy, heavier with anticipation.
Killers of the Flower Moon finally began around 10:30 PM, after the cast's arrival and the opening applause.
It was long.
Very long. But also intense.
Watching it there, in that room, surrounded by actors, directors, and people from the industry, made it immersive.
Tyler recorded scattered moments, quiet reactions from the group. At one point, after more than three hours, he pointed the camera at Eric, who slowly turned his head toward it with an exhausted expression, knowing there were still more than twenty minutes left.
When it ended, the silence lasted barely a second, and then came the ovation.
It lasted a full nine minutes.
The entire room on its feet, applauding with a mix of respect and emotion.
Among the audience, there were even members of the Osage Nation, whose story stood at the center of the film. A people who, after discovering oil on their land in the early 20th century, became the wealthiest per capita, and at the same time, victims of a series of murders and abuses the film portrayed.
That gave the moment a different weight. It wasn't just cinema. It was also memory.
Finally, Owen's first day in Cannes came to an end.
And then the 21st arrived. This time, it wasn't about watching. It was about showing. The premiere of Good Will Hunting.
Finally, it was his turn.
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