Cats: A Masterclass on Missing the Point
(Or, A Very Untimely Review of Tom Hooper’s Cats)
When the 2012 film adaptation of Les Misérables was released, Director Tom Hooper was met with overwhelming praise for bringing a gritty edge to one of the greatest musicals ever made. But eight years on, the film’s take on its source material makes much less sense. Les Mis is a depressing musical, yes, and it is no stranger to grime and blood. But the sound and soul of Boubil and Schöenberg’s musical is grandiose. Soaring. Theatrical. Not at all suited to the hyperrealistic, grim-dark aesthetics that Hooper embraced. It seems to me that in trying to adapt Les Mis for the screen, Hooper misunderstood what makes the musical so good.
Eight years have passed since then, and Tom Hooper has made the same mistakes tenfold with his 2019 adaptation of Cats.
Admittedly, the musical this film is based on doesn’t leave much to work with. Cats is indeed an aimless, strange, and very stupid musical with nothing important to say. But it doesn’t try to say anything important. It revels in its stupidity, has fun with its nonsensicality, and takes full advantage of all the fantastical elements of the Broadway musical. That is why Cats works: it knows exactly what it is.
Cats 2019 has no idea what it is.
This indecision is clearest just by looking at the cats. When designing animals for film, it’s important to pick one of two paths: commitment to hyperrealism, or a stylized approach that gives animals more human traits. The film didn’t pick either path; instead, it dove headfirst into the Uncanny Valley. Fur abruptly ends at the wrists and ankles, leaving the cats with shoddily colored human hands and feet. Because these human feet have been edited over, there are several sequences in which the cats look like they’re floating above the ground. Every bit of red in the actors’ faces sticks out like a sore thumb and leaves the cats looking either sick or high. Probably high. The scale is completely incomprehensible — one moment the cats appear to be the size of a real cat, the next they barely seem bigger than Barbie dolls (at one point Victoria wears a pearl ring as a bracelet). Don’t even get me started on the politics of Jellicle Cat clothing.
The movie is about an abandoned cat getting swept into a cultish community of fellow felines who compete for the honor of being reborn into a new life. Idris Elba tries to interfere, but he’s foiled, and Jennifer Hudson gets to die. If that sounds like a disjointed mess thinner than Elba’s CGI fur, that’s because it is. Cats has never been about much, so the movie goes to great lengths to define a plot — choosing Victoria as the main character and giving her an attempt at an arc, expanding Macavity’s role as a villain, placing more emphasis on the Jellicle Ball, etc. One would think that giving a structure to something as famously structureless as Cats would help the audience take the film more seriously. It does the opposite. Taking Cats seriously is impossible on principle. It’s a musical about people dressed as cats based on a collection of children’s poems — such an outrageous concept can only succeed by ignoring substance altogether and going all in on style. But the film, ever ignorant of why and how its source material works, scrapes together an inconsequential, shallow, ineffective story that only draws more attention to how plotless and pointless the entire movie is.
The dancers in this film deserve massive props for managing to shine in spite of…everything. They did an excellent job performing Andy Blankenbeuhler’s choreography, which itself is quite fresh. Unfortunately the dancing falls victim to the cinematography; the cats are only ever shot at awkward angles and crops that fail to properly highlight their skill. The rest of the cast is a mixed bag. Taylor Swift is arguably the best one in the movie. Her physicality and pop star voice match the sultry attitude of Bombalurina’s musical number, and she’s on screen for long enough to make an impression, but not so long as to really embarrass herself. Idris Elba seems to be having the time of his life as Macavity, as does Jason Derulo, who plays Rum Tum Tugger. Derulo’s fatal flaw is that he lacks the sex appeal of his Broadway counterpart. Francesca Hayward’s dance talent shines, and her voice is fine, but she comes across as oddly frail and one-dimensional. There’s nothing to say about Judi Dench and Ian McKellan (Old Deutoronomy and Gus the Theatre Cat) beyond “what the hell are they doing here.” Laurie Davidson’s Mr. Mistoffelees is barely magical at all, in fact he’s very sheepish and has zero confidence. What they did to Jennifer Hudson is baffling. There is hardly a single scene in the entire 90 minute movie when Hudson’s nose is not running. It’s so noticeable and so ever-present that one has to wonder: was her nose really running, or did they take the time to digitally add in snot?
Rebel Wilson and James Corden are a special kind of terrible. Their singing never goes beyond “okay” and their brands of humor have no business being in this movie. Few things are more tedious than Corden as Bustopher Jones stopping the movie dead to ad lib. Worse, every joke that either actor makes is entirely dependent on their identity as “the fat cats.” They bumble around, fall off things, and eat anything in sight (including cockroaches with human faces). They are funny because they fail, and they fail because they are fat. Seeing this kind of humor in this movie is not only cringey, it’s disappointing. Just when you thought Cats 2019 couldn’t stoop any lower, it feels the need to lean on fatphobia as a punchline. It also doesn’t help that they’re two of the worst looking cats in the film. Wilson unzipping her computerized cat skin has become infamous, and Corden’s design bears a striking similarity to Mike Meyers as The Cat in the Hat.
Like its predecessor, Cats is a very horny movie. But the musical’s horniness is served with a healthy dose of spandex and cheese to make it go down easy. Cats 2019 is joyless in its horniness. Throughout the entire film, the cats writhe around on the floor, breathe heavily, undulate their weird genitalia-less bodies, wind their tails around each other, and look at each other with expressions that should be seductive, but come off as predatory. One cat chugs a stream of white liquid with head held back and mouth wide open (it’s milk, but the image is no less uncomfortable.) Derulo sings into Hayward’s cat foot like a microphone and comes dangerously close to putting his mouth on it. Towards the end, the entire cast gets high on catnip that sends them into a sexually charged haze. “Mungojerrie and Rumpleteazer” is the most egregious offender. The original number was once a fun romp about two trickster friends that featured some of the most impressive choreography in the show. Hooper twists it into a creepy invitation to a threesome. The energy is lost, the spectacle is nonexistent, and the sensuality is extremely unsettling. It really is the ultimate metaphor for the entire movie.
Wherever the original musical is spectacular, the film is underwhelming. Wherever the musical is joyful, the film is awkward. Wherever the musical is a celebration of costume design, makeup, and dance, the film is a visual nightmare that isn’t celebratory in any way. Not a single thing was done right in Cats 2019, and not one iota of the source material was understood. It has no true identity and no true purpose beyond making you appreciate the stage musical so much more.
I used to say that when I go to hell, the Megamix from Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat will be playing for me at the gates. Now, I can confidently say that what awaits me on the other side is the faces of the Jellicle cats, staring at me through the bars and reaching out with their terrible human hands.
