Show The Kiss
An in-depth Twisters breakdown.
Steven Spielberg directed Jaws, Jurassic Park, Schindler’s List, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, the original Indiana Jones trilogy, Minority Report, War of the Worlds, A.I. Artificial Intelligence, Catch Me If You Can, Munich, Lincoln, West Side Story, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, The Fabelmans, Saving Private Ryan and somehow many (MANY) other classics. It wouldn’t be insane to say that he’s the most prolific and important filmmaker of all time, and yet, the guy’s an imbecile.
The 77-year-old is the only thing standing between us and Glen Powell and Daisy Edgar-Jones kissing at the end of Twisters. That’s not a stretching of the truth in the slightest. Just read the following note from Collider.
"I think it's a Spielberg note, wasn’t it? Do you know what it is? I think it stops the film feeling too cliched, actually. I think there's something really wonderful about it feeling like there's a continuation. This isn't the end of their story. They're united by their shared passion for something." —Daisy Edgar-Jones
“I also think that this movie is not about them finding love. It's returning Kate to the thing that she loves, which is storm chasing. So that's what you have at the end of the movie. They share this thing, and her passion is reinvigorated, and her sense of home is reinvigorated. I feel like a kiss would be sort of unrepresentative of the right goal at the end of the movie. And it is a good Spielberg note. It's why that kid is still in this game. It's amazing.” —Glen Powell
Now who am I to tell Spielberg how to do his job as producer of the recent Lee Isaac Chung blockbuster? But, that’s exactly what I’m going to do here. This isn’t an arthouse piece or an indie darling. It’s an attempted crowdpleaser, a summer action thriller. Powell and Edgar-Jones are devastated … in my mind. They’re just bargaining in the above interview.
You already have a character running through an airport to find their love. Let them lock lips. It’s not like they didn’t film it either. It’s right here. It’s so close.
Is the movie good? Ehh, it’s fine. But it feels like a faux pas not to end the enemies-to-lover trope with a bit of romance. The IMAX theater I saw this film in started to applaud when Powell strutted in a form-fitting white shirt in some rain. The audience would have combusted were they to get this kiss to finish the movie off.
It also seems like this isn’t the first time Spielberg nixed the kiss. There was an early example of Kissgate all the way back in Jurassic Park.
There was an axed scene where the two passionately embrace and kiss while working at the Velociraptor dig site. This stands in stark contrast to Michael Crichton's book, where the two were simply friends and Dr. Sattler was engaged to another man. The romantic scene never made it into the final film. —CBR
It’s especially funny when compared to the original Twister, which is basically David Cronenberg’s Crash but for tornadoes. Helen Hunt and Bill Paxton’s protagonists Jo and Bill fall back in love with one another—ruining Bill’s engagement—due to their love of storms. They end the movie with a we-just-somehow-survived kiss, and then this movie never follows up in its footsteps.
It’s too busy diving into trauma, something very important to do, but a bit misplaced (and shoddily written) in what should be an exciting adventure. There are too many times where the momentum gets going and then it stops in its tracks so Edgar-Jones can look off into the distance with a forlorn look in her eyes.
Ultimately a fine movie that’s fun on the big screen, it’s not like I’m going to be telling my grandkids about seeing Twisters, but it feels like a weird miss to not include Powell and Edgar-Jones romancing one another in an airport. The only one who’s happy about this is probably Paul Mescal.