I walked into the movie theater ready for a laugh. The Instagram promos for Marty Supreme showed a silly, bubbly Timothée Chalamet rattling on about how the film was going to be the next Barbie movie: colorful and trendy. He talked about orange color pallets and Wheaties boxes plastered with his face, and skillfully led me to believe that I was walking into a light and laidback movie.

Instead, I sat through a meaningful and heart-pounding tale of ambition and crippling egos. What impressed me the most wasn’t the incredible acting or intricate plot, but the genius misdirection of the promotional campaign.

First, it draws people with trendiness and humor, becoming a bridge between the lighthearted and superficial nature of most Instagram content and the powerful themes of the movie. Had the campaign directly showed all of the violence and self-destruction that is locked in the core of the plot, it would have lost the attention of many scrollers seeking a light laugh. The brilliance is that this strategy is that it gives the watcher what they want initially and forces them to process deeper themes once they are in the theater.

Additionally, the promos do not prepare people at all for the intensity of the movie, creating an unparalleled shock factor that kept me on the edge of my seat the entire time. I was waiting for the moment the movie would shift to a run-of-the-mill sports show sprinkled with jokes, but instead it kept me wrapped in the spiraling and chaotic plot for hours. Essentially, it stripped me of the walls I usually build up before intense movies and gave me a deeper experience.

I didn’t know what I was walking into when I bought my popcorn and found my seat. That alone made my experience so much more impactful, and it’s due to a quirky, brilliant promotional campaign.