Cat Person review – viral short story becomes violent big screen thriller

Geraldine Viswanathan and Emilia Jones in Cat Person. Photograph: Courtesy of Sundance Institute

As utterly inescapable as Kristen Roupenian’s viral, pop culture-piercing New Yorker short story Cat Person was in 2017, it didn’t seem like an obvious fit for any form of adaptation – a button-pushing speed-read that was as popular as it was self-contained. It told the story of a 20-year-old female student who briefly dates a schlubby, unreadable guy in his mid-30s (who may or may not have cats) in a way that many found instantly, uncomfortably, relatable. It was messy and uneasy and ultimately rather chilling as briefly dating someone can often be.

Its success was such that more was sought, insisted upon even. Its author got a book deal (a collection of short stories that landed with a bit of a thud) and sold a spec script (for Gen Z whodunnit Bodies Bodies Bodies, which was ultimately almost entirely rewritten). Cat Person was bought for extension as a movie, regardless of fit. Almost six years after it appeared online, it’s arriving at Sundance as something of a curio, a reminder of an online moment more than anything else. The question of “Remember Cat Person?” is almost immediately replaced with “How did they turn Cat Person into a movie?” which then warps into “Why did they turn Cat Person into a thriller?”