THE ELECTRICAL LIFE OF LOUIS WAIN (2021)
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(Drama, Biography, Art) [PG-13]
I think you are the first person to see that cats are in fact ridiculous. They're silly and cuddly. And lonely and frightened and brave. Like us.
In this one, we get the true story of artist Louis Wain. He was ridiculously talented artistically but ultimately became famous for changing the way people looked at cats. Utilizing the 1900’s as the setting the film explores Louis Wain's personal nightmares, amazing artistry, and his undying love for his wife Emily Richardson-Wain.
First off this movie is pretty fascinating, but the opening 30 minutes are slow and pretty boring. It isn’t until Louis (played by Benedict Cumberbatch best known for DOCTOR STRANGE) meets his soon-to-be wife Emily Richardson that things start to pick up a bit as you are just kind of rooting for them both to live long and have amazing lives. How Louis Wain got into mostly drawing and painting cats is pretty cool. Some of the lives Louis Wain touched are pretty awesome including the likes of H.G. Wells.
On a down note, the film bypasses a lot of the great things that may have been in Louis’s life to focus more on the turmoil and drama and just a bunch of depressing scenes that seem to drag on and on. Granted I knew nothing about Louis Wain before watching this movie, so perhaps other works go into how dark some of the things he went through were.
I mean if you like cats a lot, there are just a ton of cats and cat paintings and drawings in this thing. However, outside of that, we get a lot of repetitive stuff, which ends up being a huge departure from any of the film's previews. Performance-wise this is yet another fantastic outing from Benedict Cumberbatch. We definitely see him stretching his acting skills in this one. Most everyone else’s performances are also top-notch, but Claire Foy who plays Emily Richardson-Wain is definitely a stand out at least in this movie. She usually does artsy stuff I can’t stand. This is artsy stuff I can almost stand.
Cinematically this is shot pretty well and I loved the locations involved. We are given moments of laughter and tears and some pretty comforting emotional sequences, so this movie does contain a great deal of beauty, but ultimately I ended up finishing this movie thinking…” well that was a bummer flick I won’t be watching again.”
It’s hard to say this did justice to Loius Wain's legacy because I don’t know enough about him, but you do get the idea he was an amazingly talented man that had a positive impact on the world in spite of many personal issues. Have to give him props for that. I am also an artist who will never reach Wain popularity, but if they make a movie about me and it's as much of a depressing state of affairs as a lot of this is, I want the makers of the film punched in the nuts.
This movie is a 2 out of 7 for me with no disrespect to Louis Wain himself. I think a lot of nights it would be a 3 out of 7, but I won't be watching it a lot of nights. It also kind of stinks that I had to rate it this low because it actually features 3 actors from the MCU. Benedict Cumberbatch, Taika Waititi, and Toby Jones.
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