Film version of musical has nine lives

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 20/12/2019 (2429 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Ever since Cats debuted in 1981, it has united humanity through the bonds of shared trauma.

The sung-through musical composed by Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber is based on Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats, a book of poems by T.S. Eliot, and was a record-shattering hit on Broadway and in London’s West End. Now it has been, for better or for worse, immortalized on film.

Nobody, not even Lloyd Webber, knows the true plot of Cats, but as someone who has spent the better part of her life trying to figure it out, it was time to meet the challenge.

One night in London, a young cat named Victoria (Francesca Hayward) is abandoned by a pair of human feet. She is quickly befriended by a group of curious cats known as Jellicles.

The Jellicles include Munkustrap (Robbie Fairchild), his brother, Rum Tum Tugger (Jason Derulo), Mr. Mistoffelees (Laurie Davidson) and a few other kittens.

Victoria is looking for a home, but she’s not sure if she is truly a Jellicle cat. Neither are we, for that matter, because we don’t know what it means to be Jellicle. But surely we’ll find out more as the musical progresses, right?

Wrong! You will never find out what a Jellicle cat is. Don’t get too hung up on it. Cats requires that you let go of things like the need for answers. This musical is absolute nonsense and you need to deep-dive into a Lewis Carroll state of mind to survive the ride.

The Jellicles explain that on the night of the Jellicle Moon a Jellicle Ball is held where a Jellicle cat is chosen by the Jellicle leader, Old Deuteronomy, (Dame Judi Dench) to die and be reborn in a new Jellicle life.

But there are kitty games afoot, in the form of antagonist Macavity (Idris Elba), who is on the last of his nine lives and is desperate to be reborn.

With the help of his cat gang, including Bombularina (Taylor Swift), Mungojerrie (Danny Collins) and Rumpleteazer (Naoimh Morgan), Macavity kidnaps his primary competitors Jennyanydots (Rebel Wilson), Bustopher Jones (James Corden), Skimbleshanks the Railway Cat (Steven McRae) and Gus the Theatre Cat (Ian McKellan), and magically transports them to a boat on the Thames guarded by Growltiger (Ray Winstone) via some glittery magical dust.

When it becomes clear that Old Deut will never choose Macavity, he kidnaps her, and it’s up to Mr. Mistoffelees to save the day, through the power of friendship.

That friendship is what inspires Old Deut to choose Grizabella (Jennifer Hudson) to ascend to the Heaviside Layer (a.k.a. Cat Heaven) via a chandelier propelled by a hot-air balloon.

There are also singing and dancing cockroaches, and singing and dancing mice, some of them can perform magic and some of them can’t, and McKellan laps milk out of a saucer.

If you’re not following this 100 per cent, I apologize. Just know that this plot summary comes to you from 20 years of wondering, “What did I just watch and how can I make sense of it?”

At some point during Cats, your fight, flight or fawn reaction will kick in, and you will have to make a Jellicle choice of your own. I recommend you sit back, relax, and love every minute of this terrifying two-hour ordeal, which works best when director Tom Hooper chills out with the camera and simply lets the performers perform Andy Blankenbuehler’s genre-defying choreography.

Davidson gives an especially strong performance as the insecure Mr. Mistoffelees, while the emotional heart of the film rests on the capable shoulders of Hayward’s Victoria. She’s also bestowed the only new song in the film, Beautiful Ghosts, which was written by Lloyd Webber and Swift.

But it’s Fairchild who emerges as the film’s breakout star. While stage Munkustrap is boring and bland, film Munkustrap is kind, caring, well-meaning, and handsome. Film Munkustrap makes intense eye contact with absolutely everyone. Film Munkustrap is here to seduce us all.

The fun thing about Cats is it never expected to be liked. The stakes have always been so low that they’re essentially non-existent. And in a world where studios — and artists in general — are increasingly afraid to take risks, Cats was always just one big fearlessly risk-tasking disaster that inexplicably succeeded beyond anyone’s wildest dreams.

And if we can suspend our disbelief long enough to believe in the Force or the Wizarding World, we can suspend our disbelief that a group of cats with human faces and fingers can sing and dance and be part of a cult performing a ritual sacrifice where the victim is determined by a dictator who chooses based on the best song.

It’s a Jellicle world, and we just live in it.

Twitter: @franceskoncan