‘Cat Person’ Review: Don’t Mistake This for a Date Movie

In the wickedly ambiguous Sundance conversation-starter “Cat Person,” two singles a half-generation apart see their connection pretty differently. Even the word “relationship” is relative. Margot (Emilia Jones), a 20-yr-old sophomore, performs the concession stand at a repertory theater, exactly where she flirts with a patron (Nicholas Braun of “Succession”) who appears kinda like a young Nicolas Cage. Not “Valley Girl” younger. Extra like “Wild at Heart”-era Nicolas Cage, minus the charisma. Margot describes him as “tall, darkish and … problematic” to her roommate. Nevertheless, she’s intrigued more than enough to give him her quantity. The two commence to text, sending what could aptly be termed “mixed messages,” and matters get sophisticated.

A co-writer on Gen Z coming-of-ager “Booksmart,” director Susanna Fogel likes intricate. Back again in 2017, “Cat Person” originated as a fiction entry in The New Yorker, but quickly turned anything a lot more. Prolonged in advance of everyone believed of adapting it to the major monitor, Kristen Roupenian’s shorter tale struck a nerve with the culture, which was currently grappling with its knowledge of seduction and consent. “Cat Person” ran two months after the journal published Ronan Farrow’s exposé on Harvey Weinstein, and mere months prior to a lady accused Aziz Ansari of “the worst night of my everyday living.”

Open to conflicting interpretations from any variety of perspectives, “Cat Person” invited debate, partaking instantly with the gray spots of modern courting. Fogel and screenwriter Michelle Ashford (“Masters of Sex”) make the stunning choice of dealing with the product additional as style fare than as a conventional rom-com, in which the fulfill-lovable is not and what follows is no one’s thought of a day motion picture. Three many years immediately after “Promising Younger Female,” they’ve provided us a film which is funny in locations, horrifying in other folks and all but destined to be a reference level in upcoming discussions about courtship — a idea that has below devolved to dropping by campus late at night with Fruity Pebbles and a Slurpee. We’re a extended way from “Say Nearly anything,” but a great deal closer to actuality, and that is indicating a little something.

In the vicinity of the commencing, Fogel characteristics a quotation from “The Handmaid’s Tale” creator Margaret Atwood that hits so squarely on the nose, it approximately gives the movie a black eye: “Men are worried that ladies will giggle at them. Girls are concerned that gentlemen will get rid of them.” Though some might beg to differ with that evaluation, as published the motion picture commences to really feel like an exercising in proving Atwood suitable. To that close, Margot is vulnerable to “Ally McBeal”-style flashes of fantasy and concern, cutting to some extreme state of affairs — like staying attacked by Robert, the Pink Vines-acquiring motion picture buff she’s been texting — only to snap abruptly back again to sanity. Ordinarily performed for laughs, that sitcom cliché requires on a fresh edge the way Fogel works by using it, the movie’s system of indulging Margot’s “what if he’s a serial killer?” anxieties. Repeat the trick adequate, and audiences start to get skeptical.

Which is a wholesome mind-set to have right here. Fogel presents “Cat Person” as Margot’s subjective expertise, which entails a specific absence of self-awareness. Margot initiates the flirtation at the concession stand, semi-stalks him from the back of the theater and skips past the video games of tricky to get, buying and selling hundreds of text messages, which multiply across the display screen like bacteria in a petri dish. Robert is more mature, appreciates what he would like and has a entire-time work, attributes that propose a electric power differential. But youth and magnificence give Margot an edge she’s only just discovering, and this person — awkward, kind of pathetic, a lousy kisser — is like an experiment.

Ashford has finished an admirable job of growing the small tale, adding a wild past act and fleshing out Margot’s earth to include things like a bestie (Geraldine Viswanathan), a mom (Hope Davis), an R.A. (Camille Umhoff) and a trainer (Isabella Rossellini) who serve as sounding boards for some of her uncertainties. Rossellini in particular is a great touch: a professor who sees potential in Margot, who’s in any other case pretty really hard on herself, and whose skills in the mating behavior of sure insects taps into the artwork-movie legend’s “Green Porno” project.

Margot may possibly do the job in a movie theater, but she doesn’t appear remotely interested in films. Or extracurriculars of any variety. In many respects, her persona feels continue to-unformed, but then, which is what school is for. She’s figuring issues out, and her sexual company is a single of the components currently being workshopped. What takes place when Margot goes absent for split? How to preserve Robert intrigued … but not much too fascinated? She usually takes an personal selfie, receives no reaction, then backtracks. It is tough for videos to express the nuances of screen-to-screen conversation — the way that micro-pauses, punctuation, pop-lifestyle references all subject. “Cat Person” captures people dynamics without having monotonous us with their banter. The pair’s tentative in-individual interactions are even sharper.

The film’s tone is gentle, but laced with suspicion and potential menace. In the meantime, the title refers to the thought of Robert that Margot constructs in her head, extrapolated from a flurry of messages they trade above a make any difference of times. When she finally goes to his position, she sees no indication of the two cats he’d stated. It is a grown-up residence, however oddly immature as very well. His unkempt bed room is virtually a deal-breaker, as are his clumsy makes an attempt at foreplay. And nevertheless, she doesn’t depart.

The ensuing scene is the most divisive section of Roupenian’s tale. Some viewers have interpreted it as assault. The script invents a fascinating gadget, supplying Margot an out-of-body double. “Do we want to do this?” her conscience/unconscious asks. Jones, who starred in “CODA,” can be coy a single second, caustic the up coming. Her character is composed of intriguing contradictions, which arrive off as all the far more human in the actor’s arms. “It’s just less difficult to get it in excess of with,” she tells herself. The movie’s risky ending commits to more exploring the way Margot and Robert skilled the situation fully otherwise, and how matters escalate alternatively of ending immediately after the texting stops.

If the movie’s intercourse scene reveals a person afraid of getting laughed at, its daring 3rd act confronts a different terror: men’s fear of being accused. Fogel requires that panic to outrageous extremes, placing Margot in authentic peril, but in the end Robert feels endangered as well, and the casting of Braun (who’s much less threatening than viewers will have imagined) can make sense when the tables turn. The cultural dialogue has evolved quickly plenty of to give creeps pause and honorable men whiplash, and “Cat Person” will probable demonstrate an critical catalyst for even more analysis. It is a squirmy, not comfortable film no teen desires to view with their mom, but probably all people really should — essential viewing for freshman calendar year.