It was probably the strangest place I’ve ever seen a scientist give a talk: at the front of the newly renovated main theater of the Coolidge Corner Theater in Brookline. Bruce Cohen, director of the Stanley Research Center at the Harvard-affiliated McLean Hospital, was at the podium last night, going through his Powerpoint slides about schizophrenia and his research on psychotic disorders. The familiar blue background of his slides contrasted nicely with the red curtains on either side of the big movie screen. More than 100 movie buffs, mostly in their 20s, lounged on new, and very comfortable, red, high-backed chairs, munching on popcorn.

I was there out of curiosity, to see whether a researcher giving a talk about science before the screening of a movie (that has some science elements in it) could be effective in educating the public about science. Because really, who goes to a movie theater to listen to some scientist talk? It’s an interesting idea by the Coolidge Corner Theater to put on the Science on Screen series, in which the theater invites a local scientist to give a talk before showing a movie that’s somewhat related to science.

I was surprised at the turnout on a Monday evening, but I suspect it was the film, rather than Cohen, that drew the crowd: Donnie Darko, a 2001 creepy cult favorite that has been one of the biggest midnight hits put on by the Coolidge. It had been a couple of years since the theater last showed the film, so perhaps the turnout was a result of some pent-up demand.

Donnie Darko is about a teenager, Donnie Darko, who hallucinates about a giant rabbit warning him about the coming apocalypse and goading him to do bad things. Right off the bat, Cohen didn’t sell his talk very well. One of the first things he said that he wasn’t sure how much of the movie had to do with schizophrenia. Indeed, the dark film could be interpreted in many ways (Cohen afterwards said he thought the movie was more of a religious parable). So perhaps the Coolidge program managers didn’t pick the best movie for the Science on Screen series. They could have gone with a movie like Gattaca, about a dystopia filled with genetically enhanced people, or even I, Robot but they probably aren’t as popular with Brookline movie lovers as Donnie Darko.

I asked Cohen after the show why he came to give a talk about schizophrenia if the movie wasn’t necessarily about the disease. He said it was still important to take the opportunity to talk to the public about mental illness, which he says is widely misunderstood and stigmatized. One of his take-home messages was that people suffering from schizophrenia are not any more violent than other parts of society, even though they are commonly portrayed in movies and the news as being violent.

So given that Cohen said up front that the movie wasn’t really about mental illness (implying that he was perhaps just exploiting this chance to give his spiel) and that he didn’t even comment on Donnie Darko at all, I wondered what the reaction of the people in the audience would be to his 30-minute talk. I saw at least three guys asleep (or at least with their eyes closed) during the talk, but another one was taking notes. Some people looked only mildly engaged. The guy next to me started looking at his watch about 20 minutes in. Even I was getting impatient for the movie to start by minute 20. But I guess listening to a talk about schizophrenia is better than watching Coca-cola ads.

But perhaps the best sign of whether at least some people were paying attention were the questions at the end of the talk. Three people asked some pretty thoughtful questions, such as: would it be possible one day to predict someone’s risk for these diseases? There probably would have been a couple more questions if the theater’s program manager didn’t cut things off to start the show.

In the end, even though there may not have been a lot of science in the movie shown last night, and going to a movie theater is really more about entertainment then education, I came away thinking that maybe it is possible to sneak in a quick science lesson at the movies, but only if the movie—and the popcorn—are good.