Review of The Cat's Meow (2001) by Rebecca H — 21 May 2009

In 1924, on a pleasure cruise care of movie mogul William Randolph Hearst, a man died. No one knows (or has admitted knowing) why; history won't even agree on the "how". The Cat's Meow presents the most popular version of events, and if you know your film history, this might intrigue you. If not, there may not be enough to keep you interested.

Warning signs should go up whenever a film begins at the end: it means the story doesn't have a strong enough opening. Sure enough, several semi-famous personages amiably gather on Hearst's yacht, they chat, they Charlston and they quietly debauch each other. It doesn't exactly start with a bang. If you didn't know someone was going to die, would you keep watching? Honestly, if I'd seen The Cat's Meow on television rather than DVD, I would probably have changed the channel long before the film's one actual event took place.

Tensions build reasonably enough before that, but it's all a bit vague. Marion Davies (Kirsten Dunst) is Hearst's (Edward Herrmann) mistress. He is paranoid, obsessive, he spies on his guests and he owns a gun. You'd think she'd know better than to flirt with lothario Charlie Chaplin (Eddie Izzard), who is determined to win her away from Hearst, or at least sleep with her. The film promises us that this is going somewhere, and it does - but alas, it gets there too soon. The "accident" occurs just over an hour in, leaving about 45 minutes of unnecessary comedown. There isn't even the ghost of a climax.

The characters make a pact of silence - well, we knew they would - but what good is that if most of them barely noticed the man get killed? How interesting is a murder mystery if nobody investigates it, and the killer goes free? Presented like this, with the crime and its motives obvious but free of consequence, this isn't a murder mystery at all. It's A Thing That Happened; far more anecdote than story.

It is at least somewhat entertaining to watch. Kirsten Dunst is rewarding as Marion Davies, trapped (not altogether unwillingly) in her relationship with Hearst and struggling to repel the affections of a younger man who, in honesty, probably won't be any better for her. It's a gently idiosyncratic performance, and the best thing in the film. Also, the dialogue is often rather bubbly, and there's a lot of jaunty '20s music.

Alas, the positives fizzle out there. Eddie Izzard has plenty of devilish charm as Chaplin, but he's not a very accomplished actor, and many lines fall flat. Also, frustratingly, despite hiring a comedian to play another comedian, he is never funny. Edward Herrmann is somewhat one-note as Hearst, a demented Herman Munster who is such a Grade-A nutcase that you wonder how anyone is brave enough to share a room, let alone a yacht, with him. Other characters, such as Joanna Lumley and Jennifer Tilly as a contemporary novelist and columnist respectively, just sort of float through the film, adding nothing. All the various secrets, lies and double-crosses don't amount to much or go terribly far. It is a shallow, self-serving experience.

For all but one ill-fated passenger, life is much the same after the cruise as it was before. The murder - if you can call it that, for the victim is killed under false pretences - is not planned, and although events are slowly conspiring towards his doom, as movies demand they must, they are doing so by a list of ironic coincidences, not through the wishes of the characters. Nobody wants him dead and nobody really misses him when he's gone. The most important thing that happens in the film, therefore, is an accident with no consequences. It is difficult to work up any enthusiasm for such a flat, circuitously meaningless story.

I'm not sure what The Cat's Meow is really about. Joanna Lumley (as novelist Elinor Glyn) hazards a guess at the end: it's something to do with the sad emptiness of Hollywood life, or something. Really all there is to The Cat's Meow are the events in question, composed mostly of hearsay, leaving it a no more satisfying experience than a news article, or worse, a gossip column. Lumley could just as easily be discussing the film.