In 2020, Peloton instructor Jenn Sherman sat on her stationary workout bike and faced an empty studio, dumbbells in hand, as a bass-heavy beat blared in the background.
"This song is from the soundtrack of a movie called 'Tenet,'" Sherman said, asking the empty room, and the hundreds of loyal Peloton users most likely streaming the class from home, whether they had seen it.
"Did anybody see this besides me?" she begged. "’Cause I need a manual. Someone's got to explain this. I'm not kidding."
Sherman continued her spiel, saying it would take a neuroscientist to understand the movie.
"And that's 2½ hours of my life that I want back. I want it back," Sherman declared while doing a shoulder exercise.
That was it. The internet had nothing to say of Sherman's impromptu movie review. Her comments flew under the radar.
Until Christopher Nolan, the director of "Tenet," revealed he took that class, setting the internet ablaze.
Accepting the award for best director for his latest film, "Oppenheimer," at the New York Film Critics Circle Awards in New York City on Wednesday night, Nolan pointed out the "complex emotional relationship" directors have with critics and criticism, implying he isn't one to read reviews of his own work.
That was until he was "gasping and dying" on his Peloton when the instructor, Sherman, started her spiel.
“When Rex Reed takes a s--- on your film, he doesn’t ask you to work out more with him,” Nolan joked, referring to the film critic.
Word made it back to Sherman that Nolan took, and maybe didn't love, her class, but that didn't stop her from being pumped that Nolan knows who she is.
“I was excited,” Sherman said Thursday night on Instagram. “And then I read the article,” she added, appearing to refer to Variety’s write-up of Nolan’s acceptance speech.
"I may not have understood a minute of what the hell was going on in 'Tenet,'" Sherman conceded. "But I have seen 'Oppenheimer' twice, and that's six hours of my life that I don't ever want to give back."
Sherman closed her video with an exclusive offer: a front row seat for Nolan at any of her Peloton classes. She promised he could offer her any critiques he wanted.
CORRECTION (Jan. 5, 2024, 12 a.m. ET): A previous version of this article misstated the name of Nolan’s 2020 movie. It is “Tenet,” not “Tenant.”
