Movie Thoughts: A Cat's Life (2023)

• Released: April 5th, 2023
• Directed by: Guillaume Maidatchevsky
• Running time: 1h 23min
• Rating 2.5/5

Synopsis

A girl named Clémance adopts a kitten named Rroû. When Rroû escapes, he becomes a feral cat. Clémance wants her best friend back, but Rroû might have become too wild by now.

My Thoughts

 What a bad movie. Not terrible, I've seen worse, but man, I did not like this one.

First of all, it's very pro-outside cat, which I vehemently disagree with. The movie is even at odds with itself on this topic, as Rroû almost dies from being an outside cat, yet the movie still portrays it as a good thing to let him roam free rather than keeping him as an inside cat.

The plot structure of this movie is also abysmal. The plot beat of "cat escapes, Clémance looks for him" happens thrice in the same movie. Why recycle this plot beat so many times? Honestly having this happen once would've been enough. They even could've made it some kind of big epic journey for Clémance to find her pet and for Rroû to get back home. But instead it's rather minor and just kinda solves itself in the end, even after Rroû almost dies once.

I also hated Clémance in this. She's a terribly irresponsible cat owner who lets her pet roam outside unsupervised and even scruffs a near-grown cat (that HURTS the animal). Her irresponsibility even gets a sow boar killed at one point in the movie, a sow with piglets. And somehow I'm supposed to feel bad for this whiny character? Clémance's parents aren't any better, though, they should know better than to let their irresponsible child keep a pet she can't properly look after and should've been more strict with their daughter and told her no sometimes. 

The only character I honestly kinda enjoyed was Madeleine. She isn't fantastic but she was a lot more enjoyable than the main family in this movie. The animals were also fine but they were just written as generic animal characters. Even Rroû himself doesn't have that much of a personality outside of just "cat who goes feral". 

I did like the soundtrack in places, though. Also about the piglets, was it ever resolved what happens to them? I don't think it was ever brought up after their mother was killed? I also found it funny how they were so lazy with casting cat actors that Rroû's pattern changes as he grows up. When he's a young kitten, he's a classic tabby, but when he grows older he grows into a mackerel tabby. 

So yeah, not a good movie. I did mildly enjoy it for just the cute cat scenes and Madeleine, which is why this doesn't have a lower rating, but this is not good and I do not recommend it.