Cat Person

Director: Susanna Fogel
Starring: Emilia Jones, Nicholas Braun, Geraldine Viswanathan, Isabella Rossellini, Hope Davis, Fred Melamed, Christopher Shyer, Liza Koshy, Josh Andrés Rivera, Isaac Cole Powell, Michael Gandolfini
Running Time: 120 min.
Rating: R

★★★ (out of ★★★★) 

Based on the 2017 New Yorker short story by Kristen Roupenian, Cat Person revolves around a single idea, but it's an undeniably good one. Carried by a pair of gripping performances, it explores how the thinnest of lines can separate seemingly innocuous and dangerous situations. That's the challenge facing a protagonist who may have bigger worries than whether the man she's dating really owns two cats. Though this detail could represent the difference between a decent, eccentric stranger with noble intentions or a serial killer about to send her home in a body bag. 

Director Susanna Fogel begins her film with a great Margaret Atwood quote: "Men are afraid that women will laugh at them. Women are afraid that men will kill them." But don't be fooled into thinking this is a #MeToo lecture. It reaches a bit further, keeping us guessing until the story's backed against a wall, eventually transforming into a compulsively watchable character driven thriller that achieves slightly more. 

20 year-old college sophomore and part-time movie theater employee Margot (Emilia Jones) attracts the attention of frequent theatergoer Robert (Nicholas Braun), whom she describes to her feminist best friend Taylor (Geraldine Viswanathan) as resembling a character in an Apatow comedy. After a couple of awkward encounters, he gets Margot's number and they start texting until she eventually agrees to go out with him, despite Taylor's warnings and her misgivings about his odd behavior.

Following a disastrous first date and lingering feelings Robert could have creepy or even violent tendencies, Margot still can't break it off, constantly trying to convince herself of the positives. But even while fearing the worst case scenario, nothing quite prepares her for the consequences when this fling implodes and Robert proves increasingly difficult to move past. 

This guy may as well be waving a red flag when he walks into that theater and encounters Margot, with the two engaging in a strained banter that only sort of qualifies as conversation. At first glance, he's so obviously suspicious it almost seems like a flaw in Michelle Ashford's script or even the direction, until you realize that's exactly what the film's going for. Margot isn't so much enamored with him, but the idea of it, immediately tossing logic out the window to tempt fate. 

Fogel employs multiple dream sequences where Margot envisions Robert attacking her, only to pull back the curtain to reveal she's imagining it all. The familiar device becomes annoyingly repetitive until we get a hypothetical therapy session that gives us a rare glimpse into his mind and possible motivations. Reality collides with Margot's expectations when tiny details add up to paint a fuller picture. Young and insecure, she barely tolerates Taylor's sound advice and can't stand her smothering mom (Hope Davis) or vain step-dad (Christopher Shyer). Every decision she makes can be viewed through that prism.  

CODA actress Emilia Jones gives a high wire act of a performance that further clarifies why even that Best Picture winner's harshest detractors thought she was the best thing about it. Her upside is further cemented here in a difficult role that requires someone capable of credibly skirting the line between extreme vulnerability and cynicism. With every decision, Margot hides her romantic idealism beneath sarcastic humor, but remains just aware enough to realize she could end up a true crime statistic. 

As Robert, Succession's Nicholas Braun makes us doubt our own suspicions, investing his character with alarming quirks while leaving enough room for plausible deniability. Since this mostly takes Margot's perspective, so do we, but Braun deserves a lot of credit for planting subtle clues that Robert could be getting a raw deal. Or maybe not. The character's problematic worship of Harrison Ford's cinematic persona and the fact he looks a decade older than he claims doesn't qualify him as a killer, but everything is only a matter of degrees. And the increments are smaller than both assume. 

Geraldine Viswanathan impresses as Margot's cynical, sub-reddit dwelling friend, Taylor, highlighting the dissonance and similarities between living online and in the real world. And Isabella Rossellini has a small role too bizarre to describe other than by saying it involves an ant colony. The film also utilizes texting pretty well on screen, especially in a powerful scene where a series of messages intensify in hostility with each incoming ping. 

The turning point comes in a painfully awkward sex scene where Margot disengages and retreats into a conversation with another version of herself. It's kind of brilliant how Fogel makes this so uncomfortable to watch, as the whole sequence seems never ending, forcing us to watch and feel her humiliation. Stuck between lying to get through it and a fear of saying "no," she simply surrenders, chalking it up as the final straw. 

Managing to write itself out of a hole, the film provides a conclusive finish while leaving enough lingering questions to keep us thinking. In retrospect, it ends the only way it can, coming full circle as the "origin story" neither character wanted. Reluctantly entering a relationship based on the illusion of trust and compatibility, our heroine's dilemma escalates when self doubt overrides suspicion, causing viewers to squirm at the treacherous territory these two navigate in their messy, desperate attempt at authentic human connection.