This
is one semi-rom-com that should definitely carry a “don’t try this at home”
warning. Seriously kids, drinking antifreeze is bad for you and eating hair is
even worse. Yet, two potential lovers share that feline habit in Xander Robin’s
Are We Not Cats (trailer here), which opens today in New York.
Even
shaggy-haired Eli would call himself a luckless loser. When his father decides
to pick up stakes for Arizona, he leaves Eli a cargo cube truck that becomes
his home and only source of irregular employment. One haul upstate connects him
with Kyle, a born user, who drags him to a club, where the nebbish sad sack is
thunderstroke by the jerk’s girlfriend, Anya.
She
is an ultra-hipster, who wears a wig, because she has chowed down on all her
hair. (In contrast, Eli just nibbles on his mane a little, as a nervous tic.)
She is unusually sweet for a club kid, but she is unhealthily codependent on
the abusive Kyle. Nevertheless, Eli will take his shot, thereby inflaming Kyle’s
jealousy. However, puncturing Eli’s tires, leaving him stranded at Anya’s place
as a result, probably is probably not the most effective way of lashing out. Then
potential tragedy strikes, testing Eli’s judgement and our stomachs.
AWNC earned a lot of
admirers for its sudden detour into body horror, but it takes a long time
getting there. For a good deal of the film, viewers will just feel like they
are standing around watching Eli being awkward and uncomfortable. We respect
Robin’s interest for these extremely marginalized characters, but he makes us
work pretty hard for it. Also, the big shocking sequence totally strains
credulity, which is a legit issue, considering how gritty and grimy the film is
most of the time.
Still,
Chelsea Lopez really announces herself as a talent to watch with her performance
as Anya. She clearly has a remarkable knack for expressing much with very few
words. Michael Patrick Nicholson also makes a compelling sad sack and develops
some earnestly engaging chemistry with Lopez.
This
is the kind of film you will want to like more, especially if you have heard
the raves coming out of genre festivals. The tone is somewhat uneven, with
weird dashes of Wes Anderson and Shinya Tsukamoto (of Tetsuo fame) thrown in, but it is always grungy to a fault. Still
somewhat worth seeing, but more as sign of promising things to come than a film
to love and get swept up in, Are We Not
Cats opens today (2/23) in New York, at the Cinema Village.
