Kristen Roupenian’s viral brief story “Cat Person,” revealed in The New Yorker through the peak of #MeToo, struck such a cultural nerve that some readers mistakenly referred to it as a nonfiction “article.”
The story of a 20-year-old faculty scholar briefly courting a bumbling but entitled man in his mid-30s, culminating in a skin-crawlingly awkward intercourse scene, was immediately relatable to ladies who acknowledged the muddy energy dynamics and insidious discomfort inside such a relationship. Still, nobody was clamoring for the succinct “Cat Person” to be remodeled right into a feature-length popcorn thriller — and but right here it’s, directed by “Booksmart” co-writer Susanna Fogel with a screenplay by Michelle Ashford.
“Coda” star Emilia Jones portrays Margot, the college-age protagonist who’s working at an area movie show concession stand when she meets Robert (Nicholas Braun, aka Cousin Greg from “Succession”). While Braun’s precise model of awkwardness doesn’t fairly match the stumbling, but unearned air of superiority that Robert possessed within the authentic story, he does handle to be imposing whereas additionally wanting slightly misplaced. Jones is completely forged, displaying each naive curiosity towards Robert and her personal superiority over his social ineptitude. After Robert ultimately asks for her quantity, the 2 enter right into a nonstop digital dialog, proven by textual content bubbles popping throughout the display screen.
For the primary two-thirds, “Cat Person” sticks near the plot of the brief story, and efforts to pad out its particulars are a blended bag. Margot’s roommate (Geraldine Viswanathan) will get a bigger position as her loyal pal and a campus activist (she moderates a feminist subreddit), continually reminding Margot — and us — of the hazard of getting too concerned with an odd man. Less profitable are the overt thriller and horror parts that Fogel inserts into the plot, trendy as they might be. Isabella Rossellini performs a weird position as Margot’s anthropology professor, delivering a heavy-handed metaphor involving queen ants and useless male drones. As Margot grows nearer to Robert, she has visions of him violently attacking her on a date, turning the ambiguous risk current in Roupenian’s writing right into a one-note case of: Is he a serial killer or not?
“Cat Person” is at its strongest when it expands upon what made Roupenian’s work so resonant: Margot’s confused and, at occasions, brutally sincere inside monologue. Her vivid creativeness is what permits her to challenge hidden depth onto the unremarkable Robert, first by their textual content exchanges after which by conversations she envisions him having along with his therapist about her. (As within the story, it’s what Margot believes Robert might even see in her that pulls her as a lot as, or maybe greater than, the person himself.)
During the intercourse scene — as uncomfortable and jarring as within the New Yorker piece — Margot speaks to a clone of herself standing throughout the room, weighing out the professionals and cons of stopping Robert or getting it over with, all whereas enduring his clumsy makes an attempt to behave out the final porno he noticed. It’s the very best writing within the movie, demonstrating how nuance could possibly be added to the supply materials for the large display screen.
Unfortunately, the identical couldn’t be mentioned for its closing act. Whereas Roupenian’s brief story resulted in a harrowing sequence of texts from Robert, calling into query his true intentions however by no means confirming them, “Cat Person” the movie trades that ambiguity for a violent dwelling nightmare. The unfastened ends that made the unique work compelling are inexplicably tied up, changed by a misguided portrayal of Margot as an unreliable narrator, compelled to face the implications of her personal fears. It’s true that courting in a misogynistic world is a scary prospect, and Fogel and Ashford definitely acknowledge all of the delicate ways in which concern can creep in by uncertainty. If solely they trusted their viewers to do the identical.
***
‘Cat Person.’ Not rated. Running time: 1 hour 58 minutes. In theaters.
This article initially appeared in The New York Times.
