The Electrical Life of Louis Wain
The extraordinary true story of eccentric British artist Louis Wain whose playful, sometimes even psychedelic pictures helped to transform the public’s perception of cats forever.
From Ancient Egypt to TikTok, cats have accompanied humans on life’s journey. But who made the creatures cute? THE ELECTRICAL LIFE OF LOUIS WAIN tells the story of the Victorian-era artist whose widely published drawings of anthropomorphized cats transformed them from mysterious to irresistible. In a dazzling performance, Benedict Cumberbatch plays one of Britain’s most influential eccentrics as a flurry of wild ideas and prodigious artistic output.
Louis Wain brims with creativity, even as his life in the 1880s oscillates between the delightful and the dizzying. To support his widowed mother and five younger sisters, the academy-trained artist sells drawings of animals from the country fair. His skilled and speedy portraiture impresses, but his often stormy view of the world and those in it keeps him from engaging much with society. That is, until he hires a kind, curious governess for his youngest sisters, Emily Richardson, who illuminates his life in a way even he’d never imagined. Love blooms across the class divide – albeit to the chagrin of Louis’s stern sister Caroline, second oldest and second in command.