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THE VIEWING GUIDE
The Electrical Life Of Louis Wain
A deep dive into the must-see moments from the month’s big release
Will Sharpe’s biopic is a stylish, moving account of the life of its title character, a real-life artist whose paintings of cats made him world-famous. Featuring a Benedict Cumberbatch performance the equal of his Oscar-nominated work in The Power Of The Dog, its unique blend of whimsy and woe is no surprise to fans of Sharpe’s work on the small screen, including Flowers and Landscapers. Here, he takes us through the film’s key moments.
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Wain’s paintings brought him fame, yet he was troubled by the loss of his wife, severe mentalhealth issues and an obsession with electricity. Three of those are hinted at in the film’s opening, in which the crackle of a radio brings us H.G. Wells’ voice, espousing the virtues of Wain’s cat paintings, before we meet an elderly Wain in a care home. Initially, Sharpe didn’t want to start at the end. “It’s not uncommon to start that way,” he says. “But it felt like the most light-handed way of sneaking in the information about his impact on the cat’s status in society. And when you hear H.G. Wells later, you hear it in a different way.”