Love or Something Like It

Cat Person (2023) thematically expands upon Kristen Roupenian’s short story of the same title, which it is based on. By playing with genre characteristics, director Susanna Fogel creates a tense atmosphere that subverts the viewers’ expectations throughout. The film enters into dialogue with the #MeToo movement and the topics of modern heterosexual relationships, gender, and the objectification and self-objectification of women. The article thus refers to John Berger’s Ways of Seeing as well as the theory of the male gaze and its influence on female sexuality. Cat Person intertwines the mentioned topics with the current social discourse, while not succumbing to moral or gender binaries. The film, which was generally not critically acclaimed, avoids being yet another uninspired adaptation by offering something more, or at least something different than its source material.

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