‘Cat Person’ Review: Don’t Mistake This For A Date Movie
For example, you can attempt to pick a region clean of all its aquatic life but, in order to do so, you must procure a number of tools that can only be paid for by hawking valuables. Office Hours with George SaundersGeorge Saunders, the author of “Tenth of December,” on reading, and writing, and teaching at Syracuse University. Well, at theendof the story, Robert calls Margot a “whore,” so I hope that most people lose sympathy for him then.
The point at which she receives unequivocal evidence about the kind of person he is is the point at which the story ends. As varied as Roupenian’s stories are, they all clearly come from the same brain, one of those brains that feel out-of-this-world brilliant and also completely askew — like those of Karen Russell, George Saunders, Mary Gaitskill. When you purchase an independently reviewed book through our site, we earn an affiliate commission. Interestingly, the story that has received such a strong response from women for its relatability has had the opposite effect on men.
The tone of the movie might be different than the story
The story has been adapted to a film of the same name directed by Susanna Fogel. “It’s not autobiographical; though many of the details and emotional notes come from life,” Roupenian oncetoldthe New York Times. Nowicki sent the story to her ex-boyfriend, and the pair exchanged about how coincidental the details were. Published at the height of the #MeToo movement, it also prompted questions around consent and how women manage expectations in relationships with men. “She’s both a figure of enormous privilege and a figure who is disempowered, and most of the discourse about the story has focused on trying to figure out exactly where she stands.”
Sundance: How Viral New Yorker Short Story ‘Cat Person’ Became a Modern Dating Horror Movie
Emilia Jones and Nicholas Braun bring the viral ‘New Yorker’ short story to life. Which is a shame since, again, Cat Person is a strong exploration of dating dynamics for much of its runtime, and both Clarke and Braun are solid in these roles that have to exist in a gray area. Without delving too deep into the problematic nature of the third act, Margot’s fears in the rest of the film have a very real possibility that they could come true, that a complete stranger could equally be something special or a nightmare. But in the final third, Margot’s actions become a self-fulfilling prophecy, as she begins to once again see more in Robert than is probably there. While this uncertainty of a new person works as these two are in a budding relationship, this concept falls apart near the end of the film.
That’s especially the case with the first story in the book — “Bad Boy,” the one about the sex game. If you can handle its brutal conclusion, you can likely handle the rest of the collection. It’s just as incisive about its commentary on the horrors of modern dating as the short story, as it finds clever ways to depict inner monologues and nightmare fuel, with Emilia Jones and Nicholas Braun delicately balancing the contrasting tones.
A short story has come out in the New Yorker and her friends are texting to ask whether she wrote it under a pseudonym, or whether it is about her, or whether the man – who Nowicki calls “Charles” in the essay – wrote it himself. So I had the privilege of reading all 12 stories in Roupenian’s debut, “You Know You Want This,” largely unaware of the singular life of “Cat Person,” and free from preconceived notions or expectations. I was really surprised by what I read — by how exciting, smart, perceptive, weird and dark this collection is. When close to Robert , the much older moviegoer who hits on her at the concession stand before they start flirting over text, she imagines how asserting what she wants, or instances, where she’s vulnerable, might blow up in her face. Could he lock the door and corner her in the dimly lit closet in one of her classrooms? As an indication of what’s programmed into us, Margot’s mother tells her that she should “make peace with a little discomfort now and then” when pressuring her to perform a song she doesn’t want to for her stepfather’s birthday party.
While the initial story led to conversations about race, privilege and consent — the story went viral again summer 2021, after a Slate essay titled, “‘Cat Person’ and Me” was published. After she found out her ex actually knew Roupenian, Nowicki reached out, and Roupenian said it was wrong of her not to remove those details, but maintained that the work was still one of fiction, based on her own experiences. Anyway, people had a lot of thoughts about all of this on Twitter, and probably will again once the film comes out. Kristen Roupenian’s viral New Yorker short story, which, in some ways, functioned as a kind of pseudo-Rorschach test, was divisive almost from the minute it went online and sparked multiple rounds of discourse over several years. So it’s only fitting that the film adaptation from director Susanna Fogel and screenwriter Michelle Ashford is practically guaranteed to do the same. Even in this final act, Cat Person attempts to explore the same type of shifting power dynamics, the excuses and rationalizations that can lead us down questionable paths, and how different experiences can be seen in entirely different ways.
We are now on the cusp of yet another trend, as the “Cosy Game” seems poised to dominate the next few years of our interactive entertainment. And at a time when our real world feels so damn inhospitable, it’s no wonder that these congenial experiences have managed to strike a chord with audiences. That uncomfortable flirtation becomes clear to outside observers that the much older Robert most likely isn’t a suitable match for Margot. Still, the young woman forges ahead, growing their romance through texts and uncomfortable meetups.
Margot initiates the flirtation at the concession stand, semi-stalks him from the back of the theater and skips past the games of hard to get, trading hundreds of text messages, which multiply across the screen like bacteria in a petri dish. Robert is older, knows what he wants and has a full-time job, characteristics that suggest a power differential. But youth and beauty give Margot an edge she’s only just discovering, and this guy — awkward, sort of pathetic, a bad kisser — is like an experiment.
I always wanted to be a writer, but I spent most of my twenties doing anything and everything else. I did the Peace Corps in Kenya, and I was a nanny for a while, and https://matchreview.org/findmymatches-review/ then I spent a long time in graduate school, studying African literature. It’s only in the past five years that I’ve really committed myself to writing fiction.
Margot finds Robert witty and funny through text, and their conversations grow frequent, including running jokes about Robert’s two pet cats, but he is more awkward and inscrutable when she tries to see him in person. Highlights the hells of modern dating from the perspective of a young, rash woman, intending to work as a conversation starter. Except in trying to cover both sides of Atwood’s quote, what it’s trying to say gets lost in translation. The protagonist is from the same small town, goes to the same college, works at the same art house theatre. The man in the story is, like Charles in real life, a man in his 30s who is “tall, slightly overweight, with a tattoo on his shoulder” and wears a “rabbit fur hat and a vintage coat”.
Offers high-quality performance for video production and enables you to work dramatically faster. Will usually ship within 1 business day of receiving cleared payment. “Just found out that our moving ‘Cat Person’ will be premiering at Sundance….and I could not be more stoked. Is there anything more 2021 than Nicholas Braun and Michael Gandolfini being cast in the film adaption of “Cat Person? Braun is fresh off filming Succession Season 3, while Gandolfini’s The Many Saints of Newark released earlier this month, to no shortage of young Sopranos stans. Braun will play Robert, opposite to Emilia Jones, who will play Margot.
But this is all undercut by the ridiculousness of the character’s actions, and the choices that only make matters worse for everyone, even when they’re an attempt at self-preservation. Once the story moves away from Roupenian’s short story and Ashford’s take starts to take over, Cat Person becomes a mess of confusing character motivations, and attempts to make this story feel more grandiose and bombastic than it needs to be. Based on the New Yorker story of the same name by Kristen Roupenian, which went viral in 2017, Cat Person stars Emilia Jones as Margot, a college student who works at a small repertory movie theater. One of the frequent visitors to the theater is Robert , who is older than Margot, and is immediately awkward around her—which Margot finds endearing. Margot gives Robert her number and the two begin texting, getting closer and as their bond grows stronger, the red flags start flying. Fogel presents “Cat Person” as Margot’s subjective experience, which involves a certain lack of self-awareness.