Photography by Skye Collacott Williamson.

Watch the trailer for the film here.

The wind swells, the ocean breeze circles in salt rust around you, men in half-deserted streets roll up their car windows, the dimming sun hidden behind darkening clouds, the light of the cinema glows within, drawing you inside, and destiny awaits. The click of the machine, the blink of electricity, the drip of the rain outside, the ticket leading you to the screen with Twisters marked above it.

The original Twister, directed by Jan de Bont, has left an indelible mark on my life, and Lee Isaac Chung continues his legacy. Like many children who deeply connected with The Lion King or Toy Story, I had a similar love affair with Twister. This film’s portrayal of the power and unpredictability of nature inspired me to pursue Geography A Level and Environmental Science. It’s a testament to the film’s influence on my career choices and my fascination with the darker side of nature.

The newest film directed by Lee Isaac Chung Twisters stars Daisy Edgar-Jones, Glen Powell, and Anthony Ramos as the protagonists. The film was shot in various locations, including Oklahoma City and Cashion, Okarche, El Reno and Chickasha, to capture the story’s essence and the tornadoes’ power.

The Plot and Characters:

Kate (Daisy Edgar-Jones) is a PhD student interested in cloud microphysics. Javi (Antony Ramos) is responsible for data collection, and three of their close friends are also involved. They need the perfect storm, the perfect conditions, the perfect tornado. However, these conditions make a tornado align too well to create an EF-5 tornado instead of the EF-1 tornado they were searching for to test their theory. The science group’s hypostasis uses sodium polymer to remove the critical element of moisture to ‘disturb a tornado’. Theoretically, it should work, but the technology to understand a tornado has not evolved yet, and there is not enough polymer for an EF-5 tornado.

The lighthearted innocence of five PhD students in the field, highlighted by the use of video cams, and the passionate excitement for a tornado turned on their heads as the thing they loved became the thing that killed them.

The film’s opening scene, where Daisy Edgar-Jones’ character screams in agony as the tornado claims her two best friends and her boyfriend, is a powerful emotional punch. The beauty of the shot, the chaos unleashed by the tornado, and the raw pain in the scream all cut to a serene white scene, almost like heavenly imagery, and then back to Daisy, covered in blood and dirt, walking through the tornado’s aftermath. This scene, with its emotional intensity, draws you in and sets the tone for the rest of the film, making you feel deeply engaged and connected to the characters. The contrast between the white eeriness and the filth conveys Kate’s loss of innocence, her love for a tornado wiped out and replaced by fear. The grey that haunts her, the grass destroyed in the path of the tornado, her heart destroyed in the path of the tornado, her ‘childish belief that’ she ‘could make a difference’ killed in the path of the tornado.

The film is a rollercoaster of non-stop action. There’s never a dull moment as it moves from one heart-pounding action sequence to another, punctuated by gut-wrenching emotional moments that keep you on the edge of your seat. The constant thrill and excitement of the film’s action sequences will keep you engaged and thrilled, making you feel each moment’s adrenaline rush and the suspense.

Five years later, Javi returns to Kate’s life with a mission and an idea to help analyse tornados. Kate has a natural gift that none of the other characters can even grace against, and that’s the feel, the presence, the essence of a tornado. The film begins.

(I would like to officially get this out the way: I would like to apologise to Glen Powell. I have only watched him Set It Up, which I hated, and I take it back, the man can act).

The echoes of Jeb throughout the film land a gut punch to my soul. They are so hidden in the movie that once you start noticing the trail left behind by you, you can not help but have glisten form in their eyes and trail water droplets down their cheeks. As Kate contemplates staying in New York or helping Javi, she is comforted by a ghost, Jeb, holding her the way he held onto her during the tornado. It is the first essence of warm tones since the accident, and as quickly as it appears, it is wiped away by a cut through the loud train tracks and her awakening in her cool-tone apartment. One can only imagine this is a regular occurrence in her life. The moment Jeb is echoing through her is during the Toronado with Owens. The mother repeats the words Jeb did, and if you listen so closely, you hear the actor also echo those words. Love truly is the knife turning inside me. Jeb is there saving Kate over and over, and his actions are reincarnated as Javi uses the physics of levers to help Kate get Owens from under a truck. Kate finally lets go of Jeb as she looks to the sky, which she once begged to; she smiles, knowing she completed their science project and has done right by him.

My director and film-critic friend, Billy Howells, wrote: ‘Let’s face it: a sequel to Twister released 28 years after the original seems like a pure cash grab, but Chung gives this movie a reason to exist artistically. It absolutely has the “tornados destroying shit” you expect from the original, and that is very well done, but his handling of the characters is what makes this movie special.

Through these characters, the audience experiences loss and what to do when their dreams conflict with their moral values. These themes and how they are structured around the characters, especially Daisy Edgar-Jones’ Kate, make it not just a fun watch but an emotionally invested one. For those reasons, Twisters feels like a true summer blockbuster and not just a product made from a machine.’

During my casual scoop on the Internet, I saw an opinion that Kate and Owen should have completed the enemies-to-lovers trope with a final kiss. The enemies-to-lovers trope a popular narrative device in romantic films and novels, was hinted at in ‘Twisters’ and was the driving force behind the original Twister but not fully realised. I agree with the Executive Producer, Steven Spielberg, that it is better without a kiss. The intensity of their love does not require the physical notion of a kiss; there is something better about the undercurrent of waiting and waiting for confirmation. It is what made Jurassic Park’s couple, directed by the Executive Producer, sizzle and live longer in film history.

Cinematography and Directing:

One can always spot an indie director by their use of camerawork inside a car. The camerawork matched the panic and chaos; it captured the fear on everyone’s faces and the haunting use of reflection. The switch from careful, smooth camerawork during the calm to the handheld whiplash camera during the storms was captivating. I only hold one note: the scene in which Owens and Kate are hiding in a pool from the tornado. I wish the camera was tilted further down upon Kate; you just about saw Owens, and I felt that it almost ruined such a beautiful moment about Jeb and Kate with Owens slightly in the shot. I still cried my eyes out, nonetheless. There was also precisely one shot where they had the rainwater go on the camera, and it’s one of my favourite B-roll shots.

My director and film-critic friend, Billy Howells, wrote: ‘When it comes to big-budget blockbusters, studios tend to have a habit of hiring indie filmmakers. Said indie filmmakers will have only previously made movies where the entire budget is the catering budget for a blockbuster.

On the surface, studios do this to intrigue people, but they actually do it to take creative control away from the filmmaker and shape the movie into a guaranteed money-maker.

In the case of Twisters, director Lee Isaac Chung previously made Minari, which had a budget of $2 million and was nominated for several Oscars. His hiring for Twisters made me very worried due to everything I just mentioned, but this truly feels like a Lee Isaac Chung movie.

I remember watching ‘The Idea of You’ and all these new films surrounding teenagers worried that I had started to see the future of filmmaking through the spine-enduring, cringe-worthy way they used social media, hashtags and cinematography. So when Boone (Brandon Perea) brought out the iPhone with the vlogging equipment, my heart dropped for the original Twister; however, I backtracked, and they did an incredible job. The use of YouTube, vlogging, and live streaming flowed the way video camera footage rolled throughout the film. It is one of the first times I have witnessed this used effectively, leaving me pleasantly surprised and intrigued by the film’s innovative approach. I appreciate that they still had the video cam footage involved; my heart will always love them and believe they should be in every film ever. It adds a level of charm that nostalgia cannot survive without.

Soundtrack:

I can assure you with my hand on my heart that as soon as my paycheck comes in, I will give my money to the employee to buy a Twisters vinyl. This film’s soundtrack, filled with classic country tunes, has become a significant part of its identity. It’s a good day to love country music, and it’s a great day to celebrate the impact that music can have in a film. Personally, the soundtrack is the first thing I notice and the first thing I will scroll onto my phone whilst leaving the cinema (even before writing a Letterboxd review). It sets the film’s tone, makes or breaks the dramatic scenes, and combines emotion.

The most noticeable songs in the soundtrack are ‘Aint No Love in Oklahoma’ by Luke Combs and ‘Out of Oklahoma’ by Lainey Wilson. Luke Combs is used to introduce Owen; it is soulful and driven, and it plays on the truck speakers as he drives in. It reminds Kate of the country, further emphasised by her nickname of city girl; it is the masculinity of America, the epitome of the cowboy, the rough and rugged man unafraid of tornados. He is an extension of nature himself.

The two songs mirror each other in a reflection of the characters. ‘Out of Oklahoma’ is the ghost of the country life as Kate returns home to her mother; she cannot outrun her hopes, her dreams, and her fears as she almost dies in another tornado alongside Owen. She hasn’t returned home in the entire five years. Reflecting Kate, it is a slower, more melancholy country song; it is a long sequence compared to the fast-paced film as she returns and finally breathes. But the film needs it.

Wardrobe and Makeup:

The wardrobe and makeup department brought this film together. I am so sick of recent careless makeup mistakes in cinema or the need to be airbrushed while they are in the middle of a natural disaster or a horror film. The makeup of this film exceeded my expectations, and I noticed it even more on the second rewatch the next day. It made the chaos and panic ever so more natural, the sweat dripping off Glen Powell and the dust combined in Daisy Edgar-Jones’s hair. It created the illusion that they got swept up near a tornado and fought against the odds. The film’s technical aspects, particularly the wardrobe and makeup, are truly impressive and will leave you appreciative of the attention to detail, making you feel impressed and immersed in Daisy Edgar-Jones’s world.

An example of both Kate’s character development and the wardrobe department, she begins in cool-tone colours, the whites, the blues. One could represent the figure of Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz, who famously wore blue and white, hence the colours of Storm Par. Alternatively, the film depicts the clean slate she wants after the accident, while Owens wears warm tones and browns to showcase his rustic side, unafraid of nature’s dark side. Another essential detail is the side-by-side of Kate and Javi in New York, both in shirts, but Kate’s is tight, restrictive, and buttoned up. In their first tornado chase, she continues this in a turtle neck and a shirt. At the same time, Javi wears shirts throughout, but buttons show his professionalism and relaxed nature despite the military training. The military background, while not quite dived into, was an interesting character point showcasing his trauma to the incident without so drastically pointing it out in writing. Another wardrode example is the change in Kate’s hair from painfully pin straight in New York to the wavy blonde mess in Oklahoma, showing her return to her roots and finally accepting the chaos, not trying to control everything due to her behaviour towards losing her boyfriend. Referring back to the cool and warm tones, she starts to wear warmer tones as she slowly begins mixing with Owens. The climax of her wardrobe coincides with the film’s climax, as she wears a red vest top and loose brown trousers to chase the last tornado. This shows she has let go of her past traumas, and the influence of Owens has brought back warmth and purpose in her life.

In conclusion, I spent my week watching this film in cinemas three times, and I cried every time. It never lost its sparkle on rewatch, and I feel a gravitational pull to it. In my books, it’s a classic.

Check out Blu-ray Billy’s video on Twisters here.