‘Cat Person’ Wins Most Cringeworthy Sex Scene at Sundance - Rolling Stone

It volition not astonishment anybody that the centerpiece of Cat Person — an adaptation of the viral New Yorker abbreviated communicative by Kristen Roupenian, the literate lit-fuse that launched a million response articles and the sun’s-surface–hot summons astatine Sundance — is simply a sex scene. It is arsenic inevitable arsenic the information that it volition beryllium a “bad sex” scene, careless of whether it is simply a badly-made enactment country oregon not. The lone question is to the level of awfulness you volition witnesser erstwhile the 2 radical astatine the halfway of this swirling vortex volition hook up, and whether it volition marque its counterpart connected the leafage look comparatively tame. (The other, much pressing question astatine manus is: How the hellhole bash you accommodate Cat Person into a movie astatine all? But let’s not get up of ourselves.)

By this point, we’ve followed the improvement of the narration betwixt Margot (CODA’s Emilia Jones), a 20-year-old assemblage sophomore, and Robert (Succession’s Nicholas Braun), a 33-year-old man. We’ve seen them conscionable astatine her job, astatine a concession basal astatine the section arthouse theater. You know, the benignant that has a batch of revival programming and trailers astir vintage monster movies featuring “a young woman, successful peril!!!” Awkward flirting has led to regular substance exchanges and wrong jokes, arsenic good arsenic a late-night ngo to supply Margot sustenance successful the signifier of Fruity Pebbles, the benignant of motion that falls determination betwixt suspicious and sweet. They yet spell connected a due date, which involves seeing The Empire Strikes Back — 1 of his all-time favorites; ne'er caput that she finds Star Wars movies boring — astatine the aforesaid theatre wherever she works. Several beers and 1 highly horrible archetypal buss later, they are backmost astatine Robert’s place.

He pours Margot immoderate whiskey, but doesn’t springiness her the accidental to portion it. When they get to his bedroom, helium puts connected Depeche Mode’s “Enjoy the Silence.” (“Can’t you understand?/Oh, my small girl.”) Robert alternates betwixt aggressively undressing Margot and fumbling himself retired of his clothes. In the story, she imagines looking backmost connected this worst-date-ever infinitesimal with a aboriginal fellow and them laughing astir it; this time, acknowledgment to 1 of the much superb additions that screenwriter Michelle Ashford and manager Susanna Fogel bring to the table, Margot is having an ongoing speech with herself arsenic its happening. Abort mission, says the Margot coolly leaning against the wall. I can’t, it’s excessively late, answers the Margot trapped betwixt the antheral grinding distant connected apical of her. I mightiness wounded his feelings. Well, let’s conscionable get this implicit with, they some reluctantly agree.

Editor’s picks

What follows is simply a country of specified aggravated awkwardness and nuclear-grade cringeworthiness that you whitethorn privation to debar attempting coitus ever again. Playing retired successful existent time, it’s a symphony of intersexual faux pas, antheral obliviousness, contradictory statements and views connected consent (apparently “let’s instrumentality it slow” translates to manually stimulating yourself with idiosyncratic else’s manus without asking permission) and barked porno-scenario recreations. It ends with Margot having an out-of-body experience, looking down connected herself arsenic Robert, successful afloat oil-derrick mode, treats her similar a prop. When he’s finished, helium whispers “Good girl.” It’s the inverse of carnal intimacy. More similar pure, bad-sex nightmare fodder.

This surface mentation of Cat Person’s 2nd astir toxic infinitesimal connected the leafage feels designed to nauseate, arsenic good arsenic spark astatine slightest a tiny ember of reflection successful viewers: Does any of this look familiar? Has immoderate iteration of this ever happened to you? The thought being that galore pistillate viewers and, likely, a fistful of self-aware antheral viewers, volition recoil successful recognition. And arsenic successful Roupenian’s story, this brushwood volition pb to Robert sending touchy-feely dolphin emojis, Margot’s bestie Tamara (Geraldine Viswanathan) penning a blunt kiss-off connected her friend’s phone, and that bid of texts that gradually descend into misogyny, dude-bro rage and a one-word dismissal that speaks Freudian volumes: “Whore.”

Fogel stages this successful the now-de rigueur mode of having texts look onscreen arsenic they popular up, each incoming ding doubling arsenic a informing klaxon. It doesn’t marque the escalating consciousness of dread immoderate little potent. The camera dilatory moves toward the 2 young women arsenic Robert’s spiraling missives heap up, 1 aft the other. Tamar’s reactions turn much OMG. Margot’s look remains a disguise of affectional numbness.

Related

This is wherever the New Yorker mentation ends, and similar galore large abbreviated stories — “A Tree, a Rock, a Cloud,” “The Battler,” “The Lottery” — it’s the compactness and connect-the-dots aspects that springiness Roupenian’s Cat Person specified depth-charge power. That last bid of blows shows up a small past the halfway constituent successful Cat Person the movie, however, and gets astatine the bigger occupation that plagues this full endeavor: however to soma this retired into a three-act communicative that works arsenic a two-hour diagnostic film. As Fogel and Ashford told the Hollywood Reporter a fewer days earlier their glitzy Sundance premiere connected Saturday night, they decided to crook this into a Get Out-style, social-commentary fearfulness flick. It’s the benignant of Eureka! prime that feels omniscient until you spot the extremity result, astatine which constituent you whitethorn find yourself going: Um, really?

It’s not that Cat Person can’t beryllium a fearfulness communicative — it opens with Margaret Atwood’s punctuation astir men fearing humiliation and women fearing being murdered by men, and the movie taps into the inherent dread idiosyncratic would consciousness successful a perchance unsafe situation. Like, say, dealing with an unstable dude-bro. (Braun’s tallness and Cousin-Greg discomfort successful his ain tegument is weaponized here.) The summation of scary euphony playing implicit innocuous scenes from a day that already feels dodgy-as-fuck fits. Ditto thing arsenic elemental arsenic Jones walking down a acheronian thoroughfare precocious astatine night; immoderate fig of women volition archer you that’s an IRL root of anxiousness worthy of a John Carpenter score.

But erstwhile the movie commits to that notion, Cat Person starts bumping up against its genre’s conventions and limitations successful the worst imaginable way. There’s already been a batch of padding stuffed successful to get this to diagnostic length: Isabella Rosselini lecturing connected queen ants, Hope Davis turning Margot’s ma into a needy narcissist, immoderate other concern astir field authorities and a accumulation of Sondheim’s Into the Woods (in which Prince Charming is problematic), imagined therapy sessions, Viswanathan’s quality feuding with idiosyncratic connected her Reddit known arsenic “The Vagenda.” Not to notation incidents that get a passing mentions successful the communicative being dramatized into afloat sequences.

Trending

By besides trying to mold this worldly into a prefab fearfulness template, however, Cat Person’s cupful genuinely spilleth over. That’s wherefore we get a climactic country involving a fight, a fire, and Margot going from “Concession-Stand Girl” (Robert’s demeaning nickname for her) to last miss that couldn’t consciousness much forced. Worse, it seems to thin into the conception that overmuch of the last-act brouhaha and feelings of compromised information are really her responsibility — a determination that seems WTF astatine best. These elements should adhd discourse to the civilization that’s produced these issues. Instead, it reduces everything to anemic satirical beverage and banal scary-movie beats. Toxic masculinity whitethorn beryllium the beast wrong modern men, yet the effort to springiness that a signifier successful cinematic presumption falls painfully flat.

What the movie does indict well, admittedly, are movies themselves. Robert’s favourite histrion is Harrison Ford, and helium mouths the dialog of the Empire country successful which Han Solo banters with Leia earlier brusquely kissing her. When helium sends Margot a postcoital montage of Ford’s top hits the adjacent day, Tamara breaks down however scenes from Indiana Jones movies and Blade Runner merchantability the thought that women aren’t wooed truthful overmuch arsenic won implicit by sheer will. The sounds of a 1950s trailer playing successful Margot’s theater, astir the evil unleashed connected damsels successful distress, is not coincidental. Nor, we’re guessing, is the snippet of American Graffiti we spot that normalizes a 12-year-old hanging with an older guy. Don’t get america started connected the song-and-dance regular that Margot performs with her mom, for her stepdad: Marilyn Monroe’s carnally cooed “My Heart Belongs to Daddy” [shudder] from 1960’s Let’s Make Love. You can’t accidental that Cat Person is shy astir taking the mean to task for selling a romanticist perfect that’s much than a small curdled. If lone it was this rigorous and incisive astir the root worldly itself.