by Mark Murton and Linda Kay

Also Known As: The Real Life of Angel Deverell

Directed by: François Ozon

Cat Out Of The Bag Alert! This review contains MAJOR spoilers for this film!

Synopsis: Off-kilter period-drama-cum-social-satire that sees self-centered Angel Deverell (Romola Garai) rise above her humble beginnings to become a successful writer of grandiloquent romantic novels. Success enables her to buy the home of her dreams and, marrying a member of the local aristocracy, she lives her life as though a character in one of her own novels. But then the outbreak of World War I threatens to take away everything Angel holds dear.

Cat Cattle Call: Angel finds a champion in publisher Theo Gilbright (Sam Neill) who invites her to his home where his gauche guest yawns her way through his wife’s piano recital before becoming distracted by the arrival of the family’s blue cat.

Angel quickly gathers up the cat and feeds her some milk from a tea cup.

After his wife leaves the room, Angel continues to hold the kitty on her lap as she talks with Gilbright.

Angel’s debut novel is a great success and we see a montage of her accepting awards and posing for photographs, including one with two cats (if the purring on soundtrack is genuine it clearly comes the one on the right as the other looks decidedly unhappy about the whole experience!).

With her new found wealth, Angel buys ‘Paradise’, a run-down stately home which she sets about renovating. Her fame also allows her access to high society where she meets and marries painter Esmé Howe-Nevinson (Michael Fassbinder) as well as engaging his sister Nora (Lucy Russell) as her personal assistant. Soon Angel invites Gilbright and his wife Hermione (Charlotte Rampling) to visit and as they enter they encounter part of Angel’s growing menagerie, including many cats. A seal point Himalayan appears in several scenes.

With the outbreak of World War I, Angel finds reality slowly encroaching in her fantasy writing. Having enlisted, Esmé returns from the war damaged in mind and body; the loss of half a leg means he requires crutches to get around. A longhair brown tabby and a cream-colored Persian sit with the couple and Nora.

That night as Angel and Esmé prepare for bed, three longhair cats are sitting with them.

Readers become angry with Angel’s departure from frothy romances. Undaunted, Angel starts a new novel in her old style which quickly meets with the approval of the faithful Nora (and the cat).

Bitter and angry about what has befallen him, Esmé drowns his sorrows at the local pub while Angel continues to work on her novel with two of her cats for company.

Arriving home full of drink and self loathing, Esmé tries to force himself on Angel who struggles to fight him off before Nora comes to her rescue and then comforts her.

The next morning the still traumatised Angel comes into the kitchen carrying a shorthair silver tabby and is informed by Nora that Esmé has gone.

Esmé soon returns and sits passively as Nora reads aloud Angel’s now finished novel. Angel escorts Esmé from the room and Nora sits in the chair Angel has vacated, placing the cat that was on Angel’s lap onto her own, with another cat on the chair opposite.

Feeling he has nothing left to live for Esmé commits suicide, sending Angel into a spiral of despair. In a composite of overlapping shots Angel is at her dressing table as Nora combs her hair with a black cat on one side which is joined by a silver tabby.

Sometime later Angel is visited by a journalist who wants to write about Esmé and enhance his reputation as a painter. Angel readily agrees and lets him see some of Esmé’s work, with the inevitable longhair gray cat also present.

When a letter falls from a book Angel is showing the journalist it reveals a shocking truth to her.

The contents of the letter send Angel into a mental and physical decline as she wanders aimlessly around the house. Coming into the kitchen she strokes a black cat that is sitting on the table before Nora wraps a blanket around her while several cats move about the room.

Angel seems especially concerned about the welfare of “Silky Boy”, a white kitten she fears has gotten lost out in the snow so one night when she hears crying from outside she ventures out in only her nightdress to gather up the kitten and take the wee thing inside.

Angel’s condition worsens and Nora stays in close attendance to the bedridden Angel, sitting on a sofa with silky boy climbing over her, as Marvell the gardener (Tom Georgeson) brings logs for the fire.

Angel seems to rally briefly but then dies as Marvell and Silky Boy look on in silence. The animal handlers on this film were Gill Raddings with Stunt Dogs & Animals as well as Academic Animals Worldwide, S.A.

The story was based on the novel by Elizabeth Taylor (the author, not the actress) which was inspired by the life of author Marie Corelli. The film seems to exaggerate Ms. Corelli’s love of animals, though, as it didn’t appear she owned as many cats as depicted here. In fact, she humorously answered the question of why she never married this way: “There is no need, for I have three pets at home which, together, answer the same purpose as a husband. I have a dog which growls all the morning, a parrot which swears all the afternoon, and a cat which comes home late at night.”

Final Mewsings: Like angels, cats are sent from heaven.

Relevant Links:

To discuss this film and other cats in movies and on television, join us on Facebook and X.