In “Laura Gets a Cat,” writer/director Michael Ferrell paints an image of the listlessness and unease that comes from reaching that age when you’re considered “an adult” yet feel you have little to show for it. His vision, filmed crisply and buffered by good performances, takes this concept and intensifies it into a feeling you can grasp.
Laura, 32 years old, has a successful boyfriend in New York City and friends who are married with children. Another friend just appeared on Jimmy Fallon’s show. What’s Laura doing? She’s an unemployed writer and has just finished a draft of her novel. She envies her more successful friends yet doesn’t know if she wants their lives. Her biological clock is ticking…she should approach publishers with her novel…her boyfriend wants her to move in…but she doesn’t know. “Have you ever thought about leaving New York?” she asks him one night. He smells the red flags and prepares for what’s coming. But Laura doesn’t understand – she’s just talking.
A lot happens during “Laura Gets a Cat” – romantic entanglements, affairs, and questions with little answers. But in the spirit of reviewing this movie I will not reveal them. This is not a movie of plot but introspection. The film requires a lot of heavy lifting from its main star, Dana Brooke, and she handles the material well. She instills Laura with a casual, naive innocence that’s believable and abstract. “You don’t think like a couple,” her boyfriend accuses. Maybe he’s right. But Laura’s not malicious, just confused. She’s every young adult who doesn’t know where they’re headed who thinks the next decision, town, partner, etc. will provide the answers. They don’t, and she becomes more perplexed. “This is life, right here!” she muses in one scene while starring at a beach and a house full of friends. Why can’t people stop pressuring her to make a decision?
The film, shifting between filming locations in Jersey City, Brooklyn, and North Carolina blurs our perception by failing to cement them with iconic landmarks. Laura’s boyfriend Tom (Josh Tyson) lives in Manhattan, but we never see its hallmarks. Likewise, most of the scenes in Jersey City revolve around a coffee shop where she writes. A performance artist she meets named Ian (director Michael Ferrell) is creative and takes her in new directions she didn’t know existed. There’s a sequence here as the two converse that is filmed in extreme closeup and advanced speed that I didn’t care for, but Ferrell and Brooke work well together and their scenes provide much of the film’s heart.
Ferrell directs well here, matched by the cinematography by Paul Rondeau. The interiors are well-lit, the sequences flow with relative ease, and the sound, editing, and cuts are top notch. Ferrell also inserts several dream sequences into the picture, with Laura appearing on podcasts and television programs as an über successful version of her present self. And though it’s sometimes difficult to tell when she’s dreaming or when she’s not, it’s a credit to the filmmaking that during these sequences Laura isn’t herself and recognizes this. It’s what society wants her to be; and maybe even what she would want if she were to stop moving and ask the question.
A movie like this depends on its performers, and “Laura Gets a Cat” doesn’t disappoint. Brooke gives a pleasant and physical performance, blending existential questions with a quirky personality that often exists despite her. Laura isn’t defined by her experiences, but hopes each new person and destination will provide her the answers she seeks. When they don’t she feels more empty. And while her friends’ success often prods her to make a decision, I felt the film’s smartest sequence involved a homeless man she knows as he announces he’s finally getting his own place. “Does even this guy have it more figured out than me?” runs unanswered in her mind.
The rest of the cast, from Tyson to Ferrell to Devin Sanchez, who plays a NYC friend, work well with the script and are pleasing to watch. The most time is devoted to Ferrell and Tyson, and they do well. Tyson has his scene, as discusses his relationship with Laura at their breakfast table, that is honest and real. And Ferrell, as he and Laura reconnect after a long hiatus, is one of the film’s most painful and relatable.
“Laura Gets a Cat” is a pensive movie. It doesn’t have all the answers but doesn’t pretend to. It has a few scenes that wander, but I found Laura’s arc believable. We all want to have it figured out, to have all the answers, to know what the next move is. But when is life ever that easy?
You can watch “Laura Gets a Cat” on Amazon, available now and follow them on Twitter, Facebook, and their official website at: Lauragetsacat.com.
