By Jana Monji, AsAmNews Arts & Culture Writer
The Electrical Life of Louis Wain is about an outsider, an artist who became famous for his whimsical drawings of cats, but ended up in a mental facility. Director Japanese British hapa William Sharpe knows about being an outsider and has dealt with mental illness personally and cinematically. If you love cats or Benedict Cumberbatch, this is a must-see.
Sharpe, who has been frank about his type two bipolar diagnosis, has previously dealt with mental illness in the British black dramedy Flowers (Series 1, 2016; Series 2, 2018). The series was written and directed by Sharpe who also played one of the main characters. Olivia Colman played the wife Deborah and Julian Barratt, who played the husband of the titular Flower family, are both in this film which stars Benedict Cumberbatch as Wain.
Sharpe has found ways to provide the gentle glow of empathy for talented individuals who have something to give to society but must be somehow sheltered at the same time.
Cumberbatch is by turns focused and befuddled, but always harmlessly and whimsically charming. Yet the film makes it clear that those with mental illness can be a danger to themselves.
The young twenty-something Wain has already determined his subjects of choice. When it seems as if a fellow passenger in a train wants him to draw a portrait of Cleopatra, Wain quickly declares he doesn’t do people. Luckily, Cleopatra is a lap dog and this good fellow gets a quickly scribbled portrait for free. You’ll have to wait a while for the cats to come out, but you’ve already gotten an idea of Louis’ generosity and lack of business sense.
At the office, he caused a bit of a melodrama at what should have been a bucolic livestock show by getting into the pen with a bull for a closer look (Bring binoculars, next time!). He doesn’t scoop up an opportunity for a steady job offered by the kindly Sir William Ingram (Toby Jones), Managing Director of The Illustrated London News.
As the only male after the death of his father in 1880, Wain was also the head of a household that includes his mother Felicia Marie/Julie Felicie (Boiteux) and five sisters (Claire, Josephine, Marie, Caroline and Julie Felicie). Despite the financial restraints, the sisters have acquired a governess, Emily Richardson (Claire Foy), whom at first Louis objects to until she becomes the object his affection. That causes a scandal because Emily is not only a servant, she is a spinster a decade older than Louis.
Louis and Emily marry (1883) and move to Hampstead in north London where they live as happily as one can when the wife is dying of breast cancer. During this time, the couple find a black and white stray cat who they name Peter. Peter becomes the subject of Louis’s anthropomorphic sketches. In 1886, Ingram (27 October 1847 – 18 December 1924) publishes the first of Wain’s cat illustration as part of the Illustrated London News‘ Christmas issue, inadvertently launching Wain’s career as an artist of cats. What is an artist without his motif?
Wain, a widower now, still is supporting his mother and sisters, none of whom ever marry and one of whom is declared insane and institutionalized. Wain himself is shown as becoming increasingly eccentric, possibly deluded and he never acquires any business sense. The kindness of Ingram comes to an end when gout claims Ingram while dining and the sisters Wain have Louis committed to the pauper ward at Springfield Mental Hospital in Tooting where he can create art, but is separated from his inspiration: cats. He was man who was kind and it is through kindness and his own generosity that he is ultimately saved.
As narrated by Olivia Colman, The Electrical Life of Louis Wain is an adult fairy tale, with many trials, and a tragedy of a lost love, but ultimately a happy ending that includes the hand of a celebrity–Nick Cave as H.G. Wells (“He has made the cat his own. He invented a cat style, a cat society, a whole cat world. English cats that do not look and live like Wain cats are ashamed of themselves.”).
Sharpe’s touch is light and while the film gives glancing mention of troubling violent interactions and an incapacity for dealing with everyday life, there’s still a feeling of humanity in those deemed mentally ill. The chemistry between Cumberbatch and Foy has a poignant sweetness that lingers until the end of the film.
The Electrical Life of Louis Wain is a lovely, whimsical look at an artist and his life. By the end, you’ll understand the meaning of the title which has nothing to do with shocking charges or lightning bolts, but the stuff that makes life worthwhile. The film made its world premiere at Telluride Film Festival and also screened at the 2021 Toronto International Film Festival in the same month of September. It is scheduled for limited release on October 22 before its online release on Amazon Prime Video November 5.
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