Cat Person’s movie trailer turns a viral sensation into a heated thriller

Back in 2017, Kristen Roupenian’s New Yorker short story about a 20-year-old college student who gets into an unpleasant relationship with an older man turned into a massive social-media sensation. It was the subject of heated debates for months as readers endlessly discussed its lessons and intentions. Its origins (and, eventually, the book’s intentions) Margot, the student, lets her relationship with 30-something geek Robert go on longer than she wants and become more intimate than she wants, but she doesn’t know how to communicate her own contradictory desires. For his part, Robert, a “shockingly bad” kisser and even worse sexual partner, is huffy, controlling, condescending, and generally unaware of (or uninterested in) her feelings.

How much of what happens between them is her fault, how much it’s his, and whether that matters became a huge debate topic. In the rush to transform the story into an action thriller about a stalked woman, the trailer of the forthcoming film adaptation has lost a great deal of nuance. Punctuated by a softened version of a famous quote attributed to Margaret Atwood — “Men are afraid that women will laugh at them. Women are afraid that men will kill them.” — the trailer leans on the threat of male violence much more than the story does. (Atwood, incidentally, did say something similar to that quote, but the actual version wasn’t as succinct.)

Susanna F. Fogel, a Director on The Flight AttendantThe following are some examples of how to get started: UtopiaWriters on. BooksmartSundance’s 2023 film adaptation received mixed reactions. These reviews and the initial trailer indicate a drastic change in tone for the story and an extra third act. After Margot, (Emilia Jones) the main character of CODARobert (Succession’s Nicholas Braun), she worries that he’s stalking her.

In the trailer, there are many scenes that look like horror movies. Margot is cringing when his texts with aggressive language arrive. She can be seen looking back at her in dark streets or spying him outside her office. It’s a much more cinema-friendly direction for the story, but it’s worth wondering whether the film version will spark any of the same kinds of conversation about consent, responsibility in a relationship, and women owning and expressing their own desires.

Cat PersonThe film will be released in cinemas on October 6th.