There’s an issue, apparently, with the rapturously reviewed new Paul Thomas Anderson film One Battle After Another, and it’s not that it’s loud and confusing (my review based on watching the trailer, an experience that left me craving a little lie down with a Maeve Binchy – I like films where people in nice clothes discuss their feelings).
No, the problem is peeing. With a run time of nearly three hours, people who hold out until the end are bursting, and with audiences skewing heavily male (PTA’s fanbase is pretty bro-y), queues for men’s lavatories are unusually apparent. New York magazine collated social media posts on this: one woman said the gender imbalance was something she had only previously experienced at hockey games; another said her favourite part of the film experience was getting “to skip right past” the men’s loo queue; someone else compared it to an Oasis gig.
On Reddit, queries about when to pee solicited appropriately blokey advice: “There is a section when a bunch of nuns appear … You can run out for a few minutes,” one contributor advised; several more offered variations on the theme of “Have you considered One Pee Bottle After Another?”
By its loo queues shall ye know an event. In my local cinema last month, the demographic was so distinctive – jolly, dressed-up older ladies and American tourists – there was not a shred of doubt a Downton screening had just finished. At a Women’s Rugby World Cup match, the queues were pleasingly gender-balanced and free-flowing (maybe not the best expression in this context?).
Gender-neutral toilets are tackling the gender pee gap: a study by Ghent University estimated they can cut women’s waiting times from more than six minutes to less than 90 seconds, but survey data suggests people aren’t keen (54% prefer separate toilets). I’m a fan, if only for the bemused expressions of men discovering that yes, they have to queue too.
So now, despite the relentless high-concept car chases and shootouts, I’m tempted to bring my earplugs to One Battle After Another in the hope of witnessing this even rarer natural phenomenon, a men-only loo queue, myself.
• Emma Beddington is a Guardian columnist
