Summary
One of the biggest musicals of all time comes to the cinema in a fever dream of digital neon and the latest in fur technology. We’re going to need a moment.
Before anything else, we must agree that Cats has always been seriously weird. Despite that, it’s one of the biggest musicals of all time, with the original West End run lasting for a then record-breaking 21 years. It was a Jellicle choice and the public made it repeatedly.
Tom Hooper, who previously helmed Les Misérables in 2012, is not the first to attempt to bring Andrew Llyod Webber’s megamusical to the screen. David Mallet’s 1998 direct-to-video production is pretty much an edited recreation of the stage play, whereas Hooper and co-writer Lee Hall (Rocketman) set their cats loose in a digital playground of a neon-coloured fever dream.
Loosely based on the poems of T.S. Elliot, even those familiar with the musical will probably acknowledge that the narrative doesn’t make a lick of sense. After a young cat named Victoria (ballet dancer Francesca Hayward) is thrown sack-first into an alley, she gets drawn into the world of the Jellicle Cats on the night of the Jellicle Ball where they must make the Jellicle Choice of which of them will ascend to a new life on the Heaviside Layer.
Got it? You’d be forgiven for exclaiming, “What the hell is a jellicle?” before hearing the word (a bastardisation of “dear little”) several hundred more times. Based on a series of nonsense poems for children, the film follows the musical by essentially showcasing each of the characters in turn as they sing their stories for Old Deuteronomy (Judi Dench). Presented in this way in a film, it’s a swirling morass of ideas and songs that don’t necessarily connect in a logical fashion. It’s either an artistic collage or the most messed-up variety show you’ll see this year.
On a pure technical level, this is arguably the most digitally assisted musical since Moulin Rouge. From the opening shots, Hooper’s London is a surreal explosion of ideas glimpsed from cat height. At the moment the first cat person appears on screen, our brains don’t quite connect the human faces with the ‘digital fur technology’ and ears that make up the rest of their bodies. The overall effect is quite jarring, a kind of “uncatty valley” if you will.
While oversized props are used to maintain the cat eye view of the city, at other times the technology being used to shrink people just looks out of place. At its most benign its some dodgy green screen work. At its most disturbing, Rebel Wilson peels off her fur suit to reveal another suit underneath, orchestrating a troupe of computer-generated mice and cockroaches with human faces. That’s just two songs in. That sensation you feel in your throat is the urge to scream in sheer terror after glimpsing the abyss.
The hero songs range from the silly (Wilson on “The Old Gumbie Cat”), to the reworked (Jason Derulo as “The Rum Tum Tugger”) to the sheer fun (Danny Collins, Naoimh Morgan and Hayward on “Mungojerrie and Rumpleteazer”). “Beautiful Ghosts,” a new song co-written by Weber and Taylor Swift (who appears briefly on “Macavity” opposite the eponymous villain Idris Elba) is quietly emotional and fits in nicely with the familiar numbers.
If anything detracts from its impact then it’s only the proximity to “Memories,” delivered multiple times by the powerful voice of Jennifer Hudson. While the character feels like a side-story for much of the film, when Hudson steps into the spotlight it’s pure theatre. On the flip side, a finale (“The Addressing of Cats”) sung by Judi Dench seems to go on forever.
The thing about CATS is that if you’re in, then you’re all in. Nonsensical ear-candy is kind of the name of the game, and the faithful will have already bought the tickets to the next session. Yet the rest of us may find ourselves pinned against our seats, eyes wide and jaws open for 110 minutes wondering what the hell we just saw.
2019 | UK/US | DIRECTOR: Tom Hooper | WRITERS: Lee Hall, Tom Hooper| CAST: Francesca Hayward, James Corden, Judi Dench, Jason Derulo, Idris Elba, Jennifer Hudson, Ian McKellen, Taylor Swift, Rebel Wilson | DISTRIBUTOR: Universal Pictures | RUNNING TIME: 110 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 26 December 2019 (AUS)
