ARE WE NOT CATS

US, 2016, 77 minutes, Colour.
Michael Patrick Nicholson, Chelsea Lopez, Michael Godere.
Directed by Xander Robin.

This brief, rather bizarre, drama was first made by the same director and central actor as a short film. The expanded version was presented at various festivals and won prizes at Underground Cinema Festivals.

Michael Patrick Nicholson plays a worker on a garbage route in New York City, goes to visit his parents who are leaving for Arizona, inherits his father’s truck. He gets a job driving an engine for delivery in the North, is persuaded by the man who ordered the engine to give him a lift. He also invites him to a bizarre club, lots of noise and music. He encounters a young woman there, finds her attractive.

The film continues the narrative of the relationship between the two. For some reason, he starts to grow more body hair, as well as discovering various welts on his back. She, rather emaciated and wearing a wig, also seems unwell. It emerges that she has swallowed a great deal of her hair, collapses. He calls the doctor but, while waiting, operates on her himself and removes an enormous hairball.

She is taken to hospital and recovers. He is taken to hospital, is warned that he could have been charged with manslaughter. He goes to visit her, bringing her the wig there, she putting it on him, their both recovering.

This is offered to the audience to make of it what they will.