Cat Person, Kristen Roupenian’s viral short story published in The New Yorker in 2017, isn’t particularly subtle. It catalogues a brief but disastrous relationship from the perspective of 20-year-old college student Margot, who can’t quite compartmentalise her feelings about the decade-older, socially inept Robert. She pities him, but he also disgusts her. He’s tall, and being desired by such a stumbling oaf makes her feel youthful and delicate. He belittles, infantilises, and controls her in a thousand, near-invisible ways. She consistently puts his emotions before her own.
As a work of fiction, Roupenian’s story is somehow clear cut and messy at the same time, but its arrival right at the crest of the #MeToo movement meant that the conversation around Cat Person was often more illuminating than Cat Person itself. Yet, I highly doubt anything useful will come out of Cat Person’s transition to the big screen. Whatever nuance there was has been stripped here. Margot and Robert, over the film’s runtime, disintegrate before our eyes, turning from real human beings into yowling mouthpieces. It’s frustrating, ultimately – Roupenian’s story struck a chord because it’s so rare to see someone willing to put words to the murky, complex, profoundly internalised corners of gender politics.
