The Electrical World of Louis Wain is the tale of an almost forgotten painter who specialised in multi-coloured cats.
The film snuck in under the radar for me this weekend. It’s tucked away on Amazon Prime, produced by its star, Benedict Cumberbatch, and directed by British TV’s new big thing, Will Sharpe.
Japanese-English actor, writer and now director Sharpe came to fame in cult series Girl Haji and Flowers for which he was nominated for several Baftas.
Photo: Screenshot
He’s been lavished with praise by everyone he worked with, many of whom appear in The Electrical World of Louis Wain.
Louis Wain was a real-life late Victorian eccentric whose many gifts – drawing, science, boxing and composition – didn’t include making a living. This was a problem since he was meant to be the breadwinner for his mother and several sisters.
An additional cost is the girls’ governess Emily Richardson.
The story of Louis Wain seems almost tailored to its stars. Cumberbatch is always better suited, in my mind, to unworldly Englishmen than Montana cowpokes.
And when he and the wonderful Claire Foy of The Crown fame first clap eyes on each other their world lights up like electricity.
Which is partly what this story is about. Louis and Emily marry, then run up the sort of debts that happen when you’re underpaid for everything you do.
And then one day Louis and Emily adopt a stray cat called Peter, and their fortunes change.
Louis obsessively starts drawing and painting cats of all shapes, sizes and activities. And the pictures take off beyond anyone’s expectations.
In the late Nineteenth Century, it seems, cats as pets were a minority taste. But the love that Louis and Emily had for cats became nationwide, and then worldwide.
But Louis’s life was not made easier by sudden success. He was repeatedly cheated by unscrupulous operators, but far worse was when his beloved Emily became seriously ill.
And yet his paintings seemed to become more appealing despite his declining mental health.
The Electrical World of Louis Wain is an odd-shaped story. It’s certainly not a hero’s journey, or even a rags-to-riches tale.
And Wain’s strangely psychedelic cats existed in a world that’s long vanished.
But there’s a charm to the film that can’t be denied. The cast is as quirky as the subject – from narrator Olivia Colman to guest appearances by Richard Ayoade, Taika Waititi and, as Wain fan H G Wells, Australian singer Nick Cave.
It’s a folly of a story that works because everyone involved seems to have decided to share the love that star Cumberbatch and director Sharpe have for Louis Wain.
At key moments the scene suddenly turns into a vivid watercolour – the sort of painting you’d expect to see in the drawing room of the Wain family.
The Electrical World of Louis Wain is long-ago England, I suppose – the England of Alice in Wonderland, Wind in the Willows and Goodbye Mr Chips. It’s playful and unpredictable, brave and endearing. Like a cat, in other words.
