PRESENT TENSE:Big boys don't cry, but it only takes a trip to the cinema to bring out the weepy kid in me, writes HUGH LINEHAN
UH-OH. Here we go again. Take a deep breath. Swallow. Raise your hand casually to your face. Quick wipe. They’re still coming. Clear the throat. Did that sound like a whimper? It’s OK, you’re in the dark, no one can see. Maybe if you raise your eyebrows as high as they’ll go, the liquid will stay in. No good? OK, a quick squeeze shut and an across-the-cheeks swipe. But now there’s liquid coming out of your nose too. And you can’t breathe through your mouth with that golfball stuck in your throat. Oh bloody hell . . .
I knew it was coming. Half of the reviews had warned that adults – perhaps even men– would weep during the closing scenes of Toy Story 3. But still, when that familiar prickly heat started surging up my face, when the muscles in my jaw tightened, when it became harder to breathe and when, finally, my vision started to blur, I felt the usual mixture of embarrassment and pleasure at being suckered into a good cry.
On the screen in front of me, Buzz Lightyear, Woody and the rest of the Toy Storycast were sliding down an avalanche of rubbish into the red-hot oblivion of the incinerator. All hope gone, they linked hands in the face of death and gazed into each other's digitally-rendered plastic eyes.
You may have been living in a cave somewhere for the last 15 years and so are unaware of Woody and Buzz. In which case you might feel inclined to ask: what ailment afflicts a middle-aged man which causes him to weep over the plight of a couple of computer-generated marionettes? Is he some sort of empathy freak? Does he well up at the sight of Hallmark cards and flopsy bunny rabbits? Not a bit of it. In the normal run of events, I’m as brutish, insensitive and emotionally unintelligent as the next bloke. It’s just I seem to cry a lot at movies.
"Extraordinary how potent cheap music is," remarked Noël Coward. Which is a bit rich coming from the writer of Brief Encounter, a premier league tearjerker if there ever was one.
The problem first became apparent around the age of eight, during Saturday matinees at our local suburban fleapit. Given the clientele, the cinema eschewed the mawkish or sentimental in favour of a straightforward diet of second-hand Westerns and remaindered action-adventures. But even within these, there would be unexpected moments of hazard when, say, our hero’s trusty sidekick would be shot down by the villain. Soon, the good guys would be off in vengeful pursuit, which wasn’t much good to yours truly, trying and failing to stifle his sobs in the middle of row 10.
I quickly learned the sophisticated defensive tactics described in the opening paragraph to camouflage the embarrassment, along with a few more which have since fallen into disuse – the I’ve-just-dropped-my-sweets-and-need-to-scuffle-around-on-the-floor-for-a-while gambit was a particular favourite.
And so the tears flowed on, from cynical adolescence into jaded adulthood. Through Hollywood blockbusters, sensitive European art films, bittersweet comedies, maudlin melodramas. I've blubbed at them all. I've cried at masterpieces. I've cried at films I know are irredeemably naff. I've even cried at Kevin Costner movies. Give me a few surging violins and an imminent deathbed scene, and I'm gone.
So take it from an expert: despite all those advance warnings, Toy Story 3isn't so bad. If you want a complete, no-holds-barred, full-on weep-out, look no further than the last Pixar movie, Up, whose 10-minute prologue encompasses childhood dreams, young love, the sadness of infertility, the ravages of age and ultimately the bleak sundering of death. Gulp. Sorry, just give me a moment here . . .
It’s now permissible for men to shed a tear in public. The catch in the voice, the telltale shine in the eye, has become a useful tool for politicians backed into a corner. Sportsmen are allowed to weep uncontrollably when they’re on the wrong end of a scoreline. Naturally, all of this is to be deplored, but it has helped this serial cryer to achieve a certain level of equilibrium.
Unfortunately, in recent years, just when it seemed under control, the condition has entered a new, more virulent phase. Becoming a father has triggered some kind of synaptic rewiring, opening up whole new areas of potential blubbing: Children in peril! Families rent asunder! Orphans! Worse, it has jumped species, from the dark embrace of the cinema to watching television at home. All of a sudden, danger lurks everywhere – in road safety commercials, hospital dramas, observational documentaries.
It's one thing crying at It's a Wonderful Lifeor The Bicycle Thievesor Goodbye Mr Chips. But Prime Time Investigates? Excuse me for a moment, I think I've dropped my sweets . . .