At the beginning of this film there is a quote that gives the girl-meets-boy story that will be the subject of this film a menacing gravity. “Men are afraid that women will laugh at them. Women are afraid that men will kill them.” The two sentences come from the writer Margaret Atwood, known, among other things, for the feminist novel “The Handmaid’s Tale”.
So when in “Cat Person” 20-year-old Margot accompanies Robert, who is more than ten years older than him, home after a rather botched date, it feels like a horror film in which a character goes alone into the forest. “Don’t do it!” you want to shout to Margot. At that point she already knows that Robert kisses “shockingly badly” and gives self-absorbed monologues about “Star Wars”. There are others coming red flags added: “Don’t worry,” he says jokingly, “I won’t kill you.”
Speechlessness instead of agreement
Eerie locations, subjective settings and a dark soundtrack: Susanna Fogel’s film uses horror film techniques to give a one-night stand experience a feeling of disgust and fear. In his text messages, Robert previously seemed nice, funny, sensitive. The two met in an art house cinema, where Margot works at the snack bar while studying. She wrote to him for several weeks—about movies, family, cats—and built a sense of familiarity. Now he’s on top of her, using pornographic language and awkwardly fiddling with her bra while she imagines a second Margot next to the bed asking, “Do we really want this?”
At the beginning of the evening she wanted. Instead of saying that she doesn’t feel like it anymore, Margot decides that it’s easier and safer to just go through with sex with Robert. This bitterly everyday scene, staged decidedly from a woman’s perspective, is extremely unpleasant to watch. And that is exactly the core of the literary template of “Cat Person”.
The short story by the US writer Kristen Roupenian appeared in the New Yorker magazine in 2017 and became an internet phenomenon. A few weeks earlier, US media had revealed that film producer Harvey Weinstein had sexually harassed and raped actresses for decades. Unlike the prominent #MeToo cases, “Cat Person” did not describe criminally relevant sexual violence, but rather legal and communicative gray areas. Countless women and non-binary people found themselves sharing similar dating experiences online.
Supposedly consensual but actually unwanted sex: This is what many women experience, in relationships as well as when dating. Roupenian’s “Cat Person” was a contribution to a debate about rethinking the understanding of consent. The film adaptation now makes it more explicit than the original that the problem here lies in non-communication: Robert has the unspoken expectation that Margot wants to sleep with him and even start a relationship – even though she has never said either. She doesn’t dare to express her own needs. “Words are very unnecessary / they can only do harm,” comments the Depeche Mode song “Enjoy the Silence” on the scene on the soundtrack.
According to the “No Means No” rule, which is the legal basis for consensual sex in some countries, Robert is not legally doing anything wrong. Should he know that she is uncomfortable? With the listless, passive way actress Emilia Jones plays Margot in this scene, this seems pretty obvious. Nicholas Braun (known from the series “Succession”) is well cast as a guy who initially seems harmless, who constantly says “sorry,” but then appears dangerous with his ignorance. If both characters were convinced that only “Yes Means Yes” meant real consent, Margot would probably go home at this point.
It is made easy for male viewers
At the beginning, director Susanna Fogel and her screenwriter Michelle Ashford remain relatively faithful to the literary original. The problem is that the two apparently don’t trust the material to support a feature film. Of course, when adapting a short story, characters and plotlines are usually developed. But in this case, the editing takes away from the core that made Roupenian’s work so successful.
Without giving any spoilers, it can be said that Robert goes through a transformation in the second half and behaves quite creepily after being rejected by Margot. The film now deals with matters relevant to criminal law and relies even more heavily on horror genre elements. What it gains in excitement, it loses in generality. Using the example of a “normal guy,” male viewers could also have reflected on their own behavior when dating; Using the example of a psychologically disturbing perpetrator figure, not so much. An opportunity that the film – compared to the original – unfortunately misses.
“Cat Person” will be in German cinemas from November 16th.
Photos: Studiocanal
2023-11-15 09:01:21
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