Directed by: Sebastián Lelio
Cat Out of the Bag Alert! This review contains some spoilers for this film!
Synopsis: Gloria (Paulina García) is a divorced mother in Santiago, Chile, who decides she doesn’t want to be alone and sets out to find romance.
Cat Burglar (Scene Stealer): A running joke in the film is the neighbor’s hairless Sphynx cat which somehow manages to find its way into Gloria’s apartment. Gloria is freaked out by the cat and picks it up to set it outside.
While Gloria is on the phone she sees the cat sitting nearby and asks Victoria (Luz Jiménez) to “get this bat out of here”. She confesses to Victoria that she doesn’t know what it is about the cat she doesn’t like but guesses it might be that it has a tail like a mouse. Victoria then tells her a story about how cats came into existence on Noah’s Ark from the nostrils of lions in order to keep the mouse population under control.
After Gloria is ditched by her boyfriend for the umpteenth time, Victoria takes her home. The cat is sitting on the couch. Victoria offers to remove the cat but Gloria says to just leave him as she slumps to the floor.
After this Gloria has a connection to the cat, who sleeps with her that night.
She wakes up to find the cat on her bed.
Later she is lying naked on the bed with the cat beside her.
She also feeds the cat and talks to him.
When the boyfriend calls with excuses, Gloria rips the phone out of the wall. She then pets the cat.
Eventually her troubled neighbor comes over and takes his cat back home, leaving Gloria alone again.
Filmmaker Sebastián Lelio would remake this movie as an English language film called Gloria Bell starring Julianne Moore.
Final Mewsings: Cats sometimes wish they could change owners.
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