Adam Gopnik's "The Unreal Thing" began as a review of The Matrix Reloaded for The New Yorker in 2003. But like the best criticism, it quickly outgrows its occasion.
Using the sequel's release as a jumping-off point, Gopnik reaches back through centuries of philosophy, religion, and speculative fiction to ask a more interesting question than whether the movie is worth watching: why did the original Matrix lodge itself so deeply in the culture, and what does that tell us about the moment we're living in?
The essay was selected for The Best American Essays 2004, edited by Louis Menand—a recognition that what Gopnik had written was less a film review than a piece of cultural diagnosis.
It's a masterclass in how a writer can take a piece of popular entertainment seriously without being either dismissive or credulous, and in how the best nonfiction finds the big idea hiding inside the immediate occasion.
Here's where you can read it:
- The New Yorker
- The Best American Essays (2004)