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Reviews
A Street Cat Named Bob (2016)
This film has a genuine goodness to it.
I've seen a lot of bad reviews for this film and honestly they're totally undeserved.
It's been criticised for not being gritty enough, being "featherweight" and lacking in conflict. To me this just speaks to a deeply pretentious need to be shocked - a film about someone who's suffered doesn't have to show every hardship in gory detail. Yes, there's a place for visceral, gruelling, Trainspotting-esque masterpieces that hit home the sheer horror and hopelessness of homelessness and drug addiction in the UK, but that's not the only kind of film that's allowed to exist.
This film isn't aimed at film critics looking for a cinematic thrill, it's aimed at a (dun dun duuuun) mainstream audience, and it has a very different objective. You aren't supposed to leave feeling like you've been there, you're supposed to leave feeling like there's hope. It makes you want to (and feel like you can) help. That's the kind of film that encourages people to donate, volunteer, generally do good. That's a worthwhile thing.
The strength of the film is its moments of kindness. Many claim that the film doesn't "hit home" because the sad bits weren't sad enough and the scary bits weren't scary enough. It hit home for me. It had me holding back tears on multiple occasions, but it did so when it was happy. The bit where the woman who chatted to James and Bob early on gives them some tuna and a knitted cat scarf, the bit where Betty gives James one of her brother's paintings (something irreplaceable that she clearly treasures), James's Father's face (fantastic performance by Anthony Head btw) when James tells him he's clean. This film is brazenly kind, the overwhelming message is one that people are good.
Yes, it's cheesy at times, but it isn't patronising. James is someone you empathise with, not sympathise. You don't feel sorry for him. I think this film set out to do something very different than what professional film critics look for. I think it succeeded in that, and I think that's just as worthwhile as the lofty artistic ambitions of grittier cinema.
Sorry for this review being more of a response to criticism than a discussion of the film's merits, I just think this film deserves to be stood up for.