The ‘other’ Benedict Cumberbatch film of 2021 (i.e. not THE POWER OF THE DOG), a fact-based bio of Louis Wain, the eccentric turn-of-the-last-century artist (and general polymath) whose whimsical drawings & paintings, via mass reproduction & popular press circulation, helped the common (and not so common) cat become common (and not so common) household pets.* Under director Will Sharpe the presentation, shot in the old Academy Ratio format (1.33:1), is nearly as eccentric as Wain, which tends to cancel out his exasperating otherness. Cash poor, but living in rather grand style with widowed mother and a passel of wild, charmless sisters, Wain seems somewhere on the autism spectrum (Asperger’s?) thru the first half of the film when he meets, courts and scandalously marries lower-class Claire Foy, the girl’s accomplished governess. But upon losing her (and beloved cat Peter), his mental condition slides into a something more like madness which apparently runs in the family. It’s a stylistic change Sharpe doesn’t quite know what to do with. Worse, half the film remains. Still, lots of superior acting and a fascinating, little-known story, if not the complete success you keep hoping it will be.
DOUBLE-BILL/LINK: Another artist meets & marries an unexpected soulmate in SHADOWLANDS (tv film 1985; feature film 1993) has Oxford Don/religious author C.S. Lewis finding love with Jewish-American poet/mother Joy Davidson. https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2020/07/shadowlands-1985.html OR: Tim Burton’s BIG EYES/’14, for another way to fashion a look into the difficult life of an eccentric niche artist. https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2015/11/big-eyes-2014.html
ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: *Even more influential in domesticating cats into live-in beasts was the introduction of various clay-based kitty litter products which only came out as recently as the 1940s. Before then, you had to ‘let the cat out’ before turning in at night.
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