Review: Cat Person

Twenty-ish college student Emilia Jones works at an arty movie theatre and meets the somewhat older Nicholas Braun, and they quickly get awkward and defensive with one another. Somehow he still asks for her number and they soon start dating. And she soon starts imagining that he violently attacks her. Also, she lies about her age to him, which totally won’t come back to bite her. Hope Davis plays Jones’ mother, Geraldine Viswanathan plays her feminist roommate who encourages Jones’ fears.

 

This may be the hardest review I’ve ever had to write, because I’m going to be talking about a film that I’ve failed to understand the filmmaker’s intent with, knowing full well that I’ve misunderstood the intent having subsequently read what both the filmmaker and original author intended. And I’m going to try to explain why I still believe that what I actually took from the film is a valid interpretation of what is there on screen, and I’m going blame the filmmakers for my own misunderstanding instead of accepting it as my own fault. Bear with me, I assure you I’m not just trying to cover up for my own ineptitude or claim that I know better than anyone else. I just think whatever the intent of this 2023 film adaptation of the Kristen Roupenian short story was, director Susanna Fogel and screenwriter Michelle Ashford have failed to properly tell that story coherently on screen. Yeah, this is gonna be a fun one and you may still think I’m wrong here (and please do inform me if that is the case, it’d be greatly helpful actually). Hopefully though, I’m working from a valid interpretation. Or at least I hope I’ll do a decent enough job of showing you my working/method for my ultimately incorrect and possibly hilariously bad answer.

 

***** SPOILERS FROM THIS POINT ON *****

 

I want to convey at the outset though, that I’m neither sexist nor misogynist and in fact I willingly watched this film knowing at least the basic premise of the film and being genuinely interested in it. I’m generally on the same side of the fence as everyone involved from a gender/societal point of view. I wanted to like this film even though I did hear in advance that it was a shit version of a popular short story. 60 seconds in and I hated it. Yeah, that might be a new record. That whole wannabe trendy way of visualising text messages combined with quirky movie buff dialogue? No movie, no. You’re the 100^th film to do that, and after 30 minutes I was beyond aggravated by the typing sounds and beeping and booping messages. At one point early on I was worried that this film would entirely comprise of phone calls and text messages, two things I’m not remotely interested in. Then we get a quote from Margaret Atwood outlining the basic thesis here: ‘Men are afraid women will laugh at them, women are afraid that men will kill them’. Alright movie, let’s see where you go with that idea. Nowhere interesting, sadly. Talk of dick pics, safe spaces, I wondered if the script was created with ChatGPT. Sure, that’s becoming a clichéd insult itself, but this felt like wannabe hip screenwriting. How do you do, fellow young people?

 

Even if I was the generation/target market for this film, I don’t think I’d enjoy it because there really isn’t anything new here and it was coming across as trendy box-ticking. At one point we get a scene where a guy declares to his ex that he’s asexual. Good for you buddy, but why should I give a toss about you in a film where you’re not an active participant in the plot? And then…I started to deviate from how I was supposed to be viewing these characters and this story. This is where my review might start to go off a cliff, I dunno. We’ll see. Maybe my lack of interest was causing me to miss certain things, that is a possibility. Or perhaps this is just a badly made film that doesn’t realise how deranged its leading female character comes across on screen or how hard it is to discern real from imagination unless you’re consistent with it on screen. Yes, the guy is a bit curt early on but you fairly quickly see he’s awkward but well-meaning, whilst she’s a moron with an overactive imagination. Going in that’s what I figured the film would be about, decent people misreading signals, everyone interprets things differently, that kind of thing, but I found Emilia Jones’ character completely unlikeable from moment one, and that her fears just weren’t matching up to the reality of the situation. This was well before she confirms her villain status by calling “Star Wars” boring. I’m being silly about that of course, but she’s just so obnoxious and self-absorbed. And moronically self-sabotaging, too. The film establishes very early on that this woman has delusional fantasies, some of which seem awfully dark and disturbing, others just silly. Are most if not all of the scenes of Nicholas Braun doing and saying bad things imaginary? My take is very clearly yes, it’s established early that she imagines the worst. Yet reviews and even the director herself seems to suggest he’s not a good guy here and that the all-important abusive text messages are supposedly meant to be real. I can’t see how that is true in the film as it plays out, and I’m not suggesting he’s perfect. I assumed this was going in a ‘both sides have their flaws’ direction. But from my viewing, a lot of that bad stuff was clearly in her head or else it’s just bad filmmaking. It’s definitely not the case in the original story, I accept that and I suspect I’d enjoy the short story much more. The film goes further than the original story, and I think that's where the issue lies. I think the filmmakers have tried to expand the story and have botched it. If I’m interpreting it wrong, why do we get the horror movie ending of the girl deciding whether to pursue another victim with a creepy look in her eye? If at least some of the scenes of his ‘bad’ behaviour were not imaginary, it’s poor filmmaking because I can't see how it’s possible based on what we’re given. There needs to be a distinction made, and since we get a very obvious imagined moment of creepy behaviour early on (everyone seems to agree on this one moment where she imagines that he attacks her), the viewer assumes that a pattern is being put into place. I accept that I’ve misread the intent overall, and there are a couple of moments late in the film that are absolutely inexcusable on Braun’s part – but because of how bizarre Jones’ behaviour has been throughout, these moments played confusingly. I mean, this woman breaks into the guy’s house for a start on the flimsiest of suspicions. It was here that I definitely recognised that something was amiss in my reading of the film versus what I assumed (but could not see on screen) as the correct reading of the film.

 

So I believe I’ve misread the intent due to poor filmmaking/storytelling not because I’m cinematically illiterate or a creep. Look at the Atwood quote at the start. Where did Braun feel Jones was laughing at him? Only after the movie scene early on do we get a sense of that. There’s no other bit in the film where he feels laughed at that we see, right? He claims to be insecure in the climax, but things are unhinged by that point anyway so it was too late. Their initial would-be romantic night together was received differently by both, but at no point does he express hurt that he's been laughed at over it, just confusion that she saw things differently to him. So no. It’s poor filmmaking/storytelling...that apparently only I have picked up on. Why? Possibly because everyone else read the short story first, and that sets you on the right path for interpreting the film. If you’ve read the story first, you’ll go into it knowing what’s real and won’t dispute that reading even as Emilia Jones’ behaviour gets more and more ridiculous and inexcusable because you already ‘know’ he’s positioned as a toxic male and therefore will assume the offensive text message and stalking accusation etc. are actually real things he’s genuinely done. Just watching the film though? Nope, you don’t get that sense unless you have a bias against men to begin with perhaps. And I don't believe my reading comes from misogyny, I was looking for and expected a film with a female-centred POV. I was fully on board with the central premise when I decided to watch it. I just didn’t get that story in the finished product. I got the female-centred POV, just that she seemed to be an unreliable narrator from what we experience on screen. Meanwhile, if the power dynamics/age difference were meant to be an issue here, the film doesn’t seem to suggest the seriousness of it. It’s mentioned, they feel initially awkward about it, then to my recollection it’s never really mentioned again. Apparently the sex scene was real, too. It didn’t play that way on screen to me, I felt it was her ludicrously imagined (to the point of seeming awkwardly humorous) take on it and therefore not to be believed just like much of what we see before it. The film sets up at the outset that she’s the ‘scared a man will kill her’ in the opening quote, so I took everything painting him as bad to be imagined or at the very least misinterpreted by her. Due to the filmmaking/storytelling I still feel sure in that, even though the filmmaker’s intent was apparently not that at all. It’s the weirdest thing and I can only chalk it up to either a misreading that I cannot connect with what I was seeing on screen, or inept filmmaking by someone who can’t see how someone who hasn't read the story or isn’t already in their head would see it any differently to them.

 

Now for some more general criticisms. I found Nicholas Braun miscast, he’s meant to be awkward but Braun is too much of a conventional bland Hallmark Channel-style hunk to pull it off convincingly. I didn’t really buy him. Meanwhile, actress Geraldine Viswanathan is insufferable as the lead actress’ best friend. In support we get Hope Davis playing Jones’ rather unlikeable mother in exactly the same manner she plays most characters: chilly. She’s also on hand for the worst scene in the entire film, a birthday song recital that in addition to taking place in bizarro world, is an embarrassment to everyone involved.

 

So where does that lead me so far as ratings and an overall summation goes? I think I’m going to have to go with my initial gut reaction for now. Although I’ve clearly not come away with what the filmmakers intended for me, I do believe it’s what I saw on screen. Therefore it has to be seen as a failed exercise in communicating a story to the audience (me) and will receive the lowest possible rating. It doesn’t appear to be terribly popular with others anyway, even though most seem a bit kinder to it than me. Perhaps one day I could watch the film again and it’ll all lock into place for me and I’ll feel embarrassed, but the problem is I disliked the characters, performances, and filmmaking style. So a revisit is highly unlikely for me.

Rating: F