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United Kingdom · 2021
1h 51m
Director Will Sharpe
Starring Benedict Cumberbatch, Claire Foy, Andrea Riseborough, Toby Jones
Genre Comedy, Drama, History
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The true story of eccentric British artist Louis Wain, whose playful, psychedelic pictures transformed the public's perception of cats forever. Set in the early 1900s, the audience follows Wain as he seeks to unlock the "electrical" mysteries of the world and, in so doing, to better understand his own life and the profound love he shared with his wife.
Slashfilm by Chris Evangelista
The Electrical Life of Louis Wain is often quite charming and sweet. But there's an undercurrent of sadness running through the entire affair, and even when the film tries to convince us that there were good times among the bad, it's hard not to think how awful life must have been for several characters here.
Sharpe’s portrait is so determined to capture the full rainbow of Wain’s singular hues that it soon becomes a muddled soup of mismatched quirks.
Screen Daily by Fionnuala Halligan
Boxily framed, the film tries out several visual looks, wandering tonally through its own aesthetic maze.
The Playlist by Gregory Ellwood
You can certainly respect Sharpe for taking a big swing in this regard, but he can’t bring the proceedings back to earth when the audience needs some sort of emotional investment. This also ends up hampering Cumberbatch, who is giving one of the most committed performances of his life, but only to find it buried under all of the film’s extracurricular aspects.
The film charts Louis Wain’s slow, long mental breakdown in ways that tackily oscillate between the pitying and the whimsical.
The Globe and Mail (Toronto) by Kate Taylor
Cumberbatch excels once again at breathing life into a sorrowful genius.
As tragic biopics go, The Electrical Life of Louis Wain isn’t interested in wallowing in misery. Instead, this amusing retelling of Wain’s life is a way to introduce his quirky illustrations to a new generation, putting them in a new light that’s more in line with the irreverent and animated creatures Wain once imagined years ago.
The Guardian by Peter Bradshaw
Director Will Sharpe is a potent talent whose early movies Black Pond and The Darkest Universe I loved – but this is a strained film, overwhelmed with self-consciousness at its own unearned period-biopic prestige.
Whether one considers said work to be worthy of a feature-length movie is almost entirely beside the point, since Stephenson and Sharpe have unearthed so much else that’s engaging about Wain’s story.
The Hollywood Reporter by Stephen Farber
Cumberbatch and Foy play beautifully together; the chemistry is palpable, and both performers know how to charm audiences without overselling the romance.
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