The Electrical Life of Louis Wain

The Electrical Life of Louis Wain

The extraordinary true story of eccentric British artist Louis Wain, whose playful, sometimes even psychedelic pictures helped to transform the public's perception of cats forever.

  • Released: 2021-10-22
  • Runtime: 111 minutes
  • Genre: Drama, History
  • Stars: Benedict Cumberbatch, Claire Foy, Andrea Riseborough, Toby Jones, Stacy Martin, Sharon Rooney, Hayley Squires, Aimee Lou Wood, Adeel Akhtar, Julian Barratt, Asim Chaudhry, Indica Watson, Sophia Di Martino, Taika Waititi, Olivia Colman, Nick Cave, Jamie Demetriou, Crystal Clarke
  • Director: Will Sharpe
 Comments
  • hazangel-89910 - 27 April 2024
    Lovely and sad
    I enjoyed this movie about an artist that I knew nothing about. I am attempting to watch everything that Benedict is in (on Amazon Prime). I had no idea how wonderful an actor he is. I discovered his talent when I was watching Sherlock and became completely intrigued by him.

    He is such a handsome man of course but what a wonderful talent he is. I cant believe I am only now discovering him. I just hope there are a lot more movies/series on Amazon Prime with him in them.

    Mr. Wait's love story with Emily was so lovely. It's so sad that it could not last longer. At least he got to experience true unconditional love. The lady that played his sister (the older one) seems to only play strange characters. I have only seen her in Alice and Jack or Jack and Alice and she truly was a strange one.

    Anyways this is worth a watch.
  • JayWolfgramm - 6 April 2023
    Like a Cat, Loses Focus Part Way Through
    "The Electrical Life of Louis Wain" is a bio pic about Louis Wain, played by Benedict Cumberbatch, whose drawings helped redefine the cultural perspective on cats. As the movie begins, they do an excellent job of introducing the audience to the character of Louis Wain. He packs his day with so many different random adventures. He goes straight from drawing a dog with both hands to a boxing match to going swimming. He is a man with about 7 different part time jobs at the same time.

    The first third of this movie is really good. Cumberbatch has terrific chemistry with the rest of cast and the scenes between him and Claire Foy are just adorable. If the movie had just focused up on this time period of Wain's life, I think we could of had a great, albeit a bit cliched, movie.

    Unfortunately, there is a second half of this movie. Biography movies have a difficult job to do. Since most things in real life do not follow a three-act structure, it is up to the writer/director to create a story that feels complete. As opposed to focusing on a singular event in Wain's life like MLK in "Selma" or Lincoln in the movie "Lincoln" the movie goes for a big picture point of view. This makes the movie drag in certain parts and begins to feel pretty repetitive.

    In short, the movie overstayed its welcome. I found myself looking at the clock as the third act came around, just waiting for the movie to end.
  • lod-06780 - 29 September 2022
    Very Slow, Depressing, Might be interesting to Cat Lovers
    I thought this was very visually appealing being a period film with well done sets and costumes. It was interesting being the story about an artist whose art is vaguely familiar to many people, and who apparently helped make cats a common house pet. The acting was fine and Benedict Cumberbatch was great as a scatter brained artistic genius. But while the movie started out fun to watch, it became slow and quite depressing to me about halfway through. It contains too many of the usual tired movie tropes too, such as the overbearing family members who push away the perfectly fine but socially inadequate suitor for their siblings/sons/daughters. If they had just focused a little more on other aspects of this man's life instead of rehashing and drawing out so many trite movie pieces that are too interchangeably with every other movie, I feel this movie would have been much better. I bet there are much much more interesting things about this man's everyday life and his philosophy that could have been features, instead of death and loss and his mental illness. It's a movie that I think makes for good background noise while you're doing something else, basically.
  • felixtarrida - 23 June 2022
    Loved every minute.
    Benedict Cumberbatch at his best in a very original film. Britishness as the non british love to see in a real life inspired script narrated as a classic tale.
  • hwytk - 1 April 2022
    Highly recommended
    What a shame this came out during the pandemic. It's a beautifully crafted film, with great actors. Something really different that deserved to be seen!