My exposure to Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Broadway sensation, Cats, is limited to its reputation in pop culture. So, basically that one episode of The Simpsons where Bart and Milhouse go on a sugar bender and watch the show before getting bored and causing a ruckus. Somehow, despite having just seen the film adaptation from director, Tom Hooper, and co-writer, Lee Hall, I still feel just as dumbfounded about the whole thing as I was even before I walked into that theater.
This is usually the point where I would give a brief synopsis or run down on what the general premise is, but I’m not sure what exactly was going on. Something about jellicle cats, a lady drops off Victoria (Francesca Hayward) into an alley in the beginning for some reason. Other cats start gathering around, singing, and dancing, and whatnot. They talk about wanting to be the “jellicle choice,” which has something to do with getting a new life, so they’re basically competing with each other…to die…with song and dance, and the winner is supposed to be chosen by Old Deuteronomy (Judi Dench). And there’s also Macavity (Idris Elba), who is interfering by magically taking out competition, so he can win. The whole film is just a non-stop series of musical numbers as we experience the world of cats through the eyes of Victoria, who meets various colorful characters played by big name actors. And it is so bizarre on all possible fronts.
Every now and then you’ll get a movie that truly catches everyone off guard, the kind of what-the-hell-did-I-just-watch experience that has to be seen to be believed. Sometimes you’ll get something like Serenity earlier this year, but the response to that felt overblown to me because it was simply one twist that no one saw coming. With Cats we finally have the strangest wide release I’ve seen come out of Hollywood in a very long time. It’s simply inconceivable to me that all the choices made here have been through the various stages of approval given the sizable, near $100 million, budget being used here.
Instead of makeup and costumes, Hooper uses a state-of-the-art “digital fur technology” to create these unsettling and odd looking creatures that look like a slightly polished version of that late night talk show gag where a live mouth is placed over a still image of a celebrity that the actor is doing an impersonation of. It’s like the human faces on these cats are trying to escape the body, often subtly shifting around in unnatural ways. It’s not a pretty sight, and it is deeply unflattering to all the actors involved. And while it’s by no means the strangest choice in the film, but I was very bothered by the way some cats, who were otherwise fully nude, were wearing sneakers while others were going bare. Why were they wearing shoes?
I imagine the film must have been fun to make for these actors because they are all bringing it. No one is really phoning it in. Jennifer Hudson gets a moment to shine with the most emotional number where Hooper gives her the same treatment that he gave Anne Hathaway in Les Misérables during her “I Dreamed A Dream” song. Despite everything going against the film, I did find her sequence somewhat moving, and her performance was able to shine through the ugly effects. I did enjoy some of the numbers, especially Taylor Swift’s number, and I quite liked the choreography, which was done by Andy Blankenbuehler, who has worked on numerous Broadway productions like In The Heights, Bring It On, and Hamilton. It incorporates numerous styles ranging from jazz, ballet, and contemporary, and Hooper captures the images with the same on-the-ground, handheld style he used in Les Misérables to give the film a grounded, but energetic quality.
I guess by most standards, Cats should be considered terrible because despite some admirable qualities, it’s mostly incomprehensible, it’s hard to look at the characters without wincing, it’s oddly horny, and even when you do have an idea as to what is happening, what is happening is often something so weird that you’ll convince yourself that your brain just made it up. I have no idea what inspired the filmmakers to take this approach with the material, but I can’t lie, I was never bored for a single second. In fact, it was almost impossible to take my eyes off the screen. I’ve never seen anything quite like it, and I doubt I’ll ever see anything like it ever again. It’s so damn bizarre that I can easily see it being a midnight movie classic sometime down the line. I would absolutely 100% watch this again. I’ve never been a fan of Tom Hooper’s work, but what he did here is so specifically peculiar that I’m almost convinced he’s secretly a genius. Almost.