drama
For cat lovers: Benedict Cumberbatch as an artist
The painter Louis Wain (Benedict Cumberbatch) has fallen in love with the governess Emily (Claire Foy). Photo: Jaap Buitendijk/Studiocanal GmbH/dpa
© dpa-infocom GmbH
Cute cat videos can get a big “Aaaaaawwww” these days. In a new feature film, Benedict Cumberbatch plays a man who became famous for his cat pictures a century ago.
The beauty of some movie characters is that they can surprise you. Actor Benedict Cumberbatch (“Sherlock”) plays such a character in “The Wondrous World of Louis Wain”.
The drama tells the life story of an unusual artist from Great Britain. Louis Wain became known for his cat paintings more than a century ago. The illustrator drew funny kittens, colorful kittens and kittens that looked a bit crazy.
So maybe his art was a forerunner of what you’re now seeing all the time on the internet – as cat content. Video channels and other platforms can spend hours searching for cute cat footage. The film tells us that pictures of the animals used to be rather unusual.
A multifaceted personality
Director Will Sharpe tells a fairytale story that looks a little like a vintage poetry album. The quirky Louis Wain is fascinated by electricity – he works on several patents, but makes his money from illustrations. He draws with two hands at the same time, writes a nonsensical opera on the side, is plagued by nightmares and likes boxing matches.
When he returned from the agricultural show on the train in 1881, another passenger asked him: “You are full of mud. Did you fight?” – «Uh, no. A 1.5 ton bull attacked me,” says Wain, holding up a drawing of the animal.
During the course of the film, Wain has to support his siblings financially. He falls in love with the governess Emily (Claire Foy), who likes to hide in the closet. The love story first brings a scandal, then a tragic turn. In his film, Sharpe tells of outsiders and losses, of psychological withdrawal and of an artist’s view of the world.
Pretty cranky
After all, it’s almost by accident that Wain develops a special relationship with cats. And so the approximately two-hour film, which is now coming to the cinema, is also an ode to the domestic cat. Actor Cumberbatch looks quite cranky in the film and is shown aged in some scenes. His character comes up with a somewhat whimsical theory about electricity.
Certainly, “The Wondrous World of Louis Wain” is one of those films that would have benefited from a little less music in some scenes, and that can sometimes drift into the kitschy. But in the end the film has such a beautiful message that you can accept that too: in the end the film is above all an appeal to take a closer look at life. To realize how much beauty there is to see despite all the losses.
The wondrous world of Louis Wain, Great Britain 2021, approx. 111 minutes, FSK from 12 years, by Will Sharpe, with Benedict Cumberbatch, Claire Foy, Andrea Riseborough, Aimee Lou Wood and Nick Cave