Directed by: Lasse Hallström
Cat Out of the Bag Alert! This review contains some spoilers for this film!
Synopsis: A rancher named Einar Gilkyson (Robert Redford) is surprised when his daughter-in-law Jean (Jennifer Lopez) shows up with his granddaughter Griff (Becca Gardner) seeking shelter from an abusive relationship.
Cat Cattle Call: There are several cats living on the ranch, and they gather when Einar milks the cow in the morning. He gives them (and a raccoon) bowls of milk but does not really interact with them other than this.
Griff watches him milking the cow one morning as a cat walk by her. She asks Einar what are the cats’ names and Einar answers they don’t have any names. “How can you tell them apart?” she asks. “I don’t tell them apart,” he answers plainly.
Griff comes to enjoy sitting in a tree and playing with the cats, two of whom she names Oscar and Charlie.
A long-haired orange tabby cat she names Sarah.
After getting angry at Jean, Einar yells at Sarah to come down out of the tree, which she does.
Over time Einar and Griff come to like and understand each other. He even asks her to work on his truck engine with him.
Things get tense when Jean’s abusive boyfriend Gary (Damian Lewis) shows up.
Einar ends up beating the crap out of Gary and throwing him in his car. Two long-haired gray cats sit in the foreground and look at one another as if impressed.
At the end of the film Griff is milking the cow with the cats around her.
Einar picks up one of the cats to keep it away from the raccoon. “She didn’t do anything to you!” he tells the raccoon. “That’s Mitchell,” Griff informs him, “He’s a boy.”
Einar checks quickly and confirms, “Yep.”
The animal coordinator on the film was Danny Virtue with Mark Dumas as trainer with several wranglers working with them. It’s not clear who worked directly with the cats.
Final Mewsings: Cats sympathize with intense family dynamics.
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