The Electrical Life of Louis Wain
Amazon Prime Video | Release Date: October 22, 2021 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
63
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 36 Critic Reviews
Positive:
21
Mixed:
13
Negative:
2

Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
The IndependentClarisse LoughreyDec 30, 2021
The Electrical Life of Louis Wain is also disarmingly tender, blessed with a deep affectation for its subject that feels fuller and more romantic in its nature than straightforward respect. Read full review
100
Original-CinKim HughesOct 22, 2021
It’s a testament to director Will Sharpe’s vision and humanity that a story predicated on mental illness, poverty, death, and heartbreak ultimately comes across as hopeful and lovely — whimsical even — while looking gorgeous on the screen. Read full review
90
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternOct 28, 2021
With its exuberant images (cats, oodles of cats), quaint Victorian settings, damask palette, odd camera angles and old-fashioned screen proportions, The Electrical Life of Louis Wain might have been too clever by more than half, except for its startling tenderness and depth of feeling, and the brilliance of its starring performances by Benedict Cumberbatch and Claire Foy. Read full review
80
The Observer (UK)Wendy IdeJan 2, 2022
Like Wain’s art, the film is superficially twee – characters are referred to as “nosy poseys” at one point – but under the kitsch is something more rewarding: an affecting portrait of a creative but troubled man. Read full review
80
Time OutHanna FlintNov 29, 2021
It’s an affable biopic about a great but troubled man, with plenty of artistic spirit of its own. Read full review
80
TimeStephanie ZacharekNov 8, 2021
Though there are patches that are sad to watch, it is for the most part a delight, a biopic that brings its subject to life in a way that’s both respectful and open-hearted. Read full review
80
The New York TimesManohla DargisOct 21, 2021
Louis is a funny, complicated character, and while the movie could have expanded its horizons (particularly in view of the changes roiling the art world), Cumberbatch fills in this expressionistic portrait exquisitely. Read full review
75
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperOct 21, 2021
The Electrical Life of Louis Wain grows bleaker as Wain’s fortunes plummet and his grasp on reality weakens by the year, but it remains a loving and respectful portrait of a man who created irresistibly adorable kitschy cats more a century before their spiritual descendants were racking up the views on YouTube. Read full review
75
The Seattle TimesMoira MacdonaldOct 21, 2021
Ultimately, The Electrical Life of Louis Wain is made enjoyable by its human and feline actors, despite the sadness of the material, and it left me wanting to know more about its subject, which I suppose is the point. Read full review
75
Film ThreatAlan NgSep 23, 2021
There’s much to like about The Electrical Life of Louis Wain — the Victorian setting, cats, Cumberbatch, and its visually stunning cinematography. But it may not be enough to spark enough life into a movie-going audience that wants something new. Read full review
75
The Film StageMichael FrankSep 17, 2021
At a minimum, The Electrical Life of Louis Wain stirs up appreciation for these tiny feline creatures that have gone from the streets to staining the carpets. Out of unusual direction and honest portrayals emerges something much greater. Read full review
75
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Kate TaylorSep 10, 2021
Cumberbatch excels once again at breathing life into a sorrowful genius. Read full review
70
Screen RantMae AbdulbakiSep 16, 2021
The Electrical Life of Louis Wain is so utterly charming and buoyant that it makes even the frustrating aspects of the film forgivable. Read full review
70
VarietyPeter DebrugeSep 13, 2021
Whether one considers said work to be worthy of a feature-length movie is almost entirely beside the point, since Stephenson and Sharpe have unearthed so much else that’s engaging about Wain’s story. Read full review
70
The Hollywood ReporterStephen FarberSep 13, 2021
Cumberbatch and Foy play beautifully together; the chemistry is palpable, and both performers know how to charm audiences without overselling the romance. Read full review
67
Austin ChronicleRichard WhittakerNov 4, 2021
Wain's psychosis is shown from the inside, the Victoriana giving way to psychotronic visions that re-create Wain's futurism and dalliances with Cubism. Read full review
67
The A.V. ClubMike D'AngeloOct 20, 2021
The more Electrical Life conforms to what one would expect of a Louis Wain biography, the less idiosyncratically compelling it becomes. An entirely fictional story loosely inspired by the man and his wife, but beholden to nothing, might have been genuinely electrifying. Read full review
65
SlashfilmChris EvangelistaSep 13, 2021
The Electrical Life of Louis Wain is often quite charming and sweet. But there's an undercurrent of sadness running through the entire affair, and even when the film tries to convince us that there were good times among the bad, it's hard not to think how awful life must have been for several characters here. Read full review
65
TheWrapMonica CastilloSep 13, 2021
As tragic biopics go, The Electrical Life of Louis Wain isn’t interested in wallowing in misery. Instead, this amusing retelling of Wain’s life is a way to introduce his quirky illustrations to a new generation, putting them in a new light that’s more in line with the irreverent and animated creatures Wain once imagined years ago. Read full review
63
RogerEbert.comNell MinowOct 22, 2021
The Electrical Life of Louis Wain has the same problem as its real-life subject, in that it goes off in too many directions at once. Read full review
63
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliOct 20, 2021
I could easily list a half-dozen movies about famous artists/authors that fall into the same general category as this one. Excepting Cumberbatch’s performance and the strong visual sense, there’s not a lot to separate this from any of them. Read full review
60
Little White LiesLydia FigesJan 6, 2022
Despite the strong performances by Cumberbatch and Foy, the complex weaving together of symbolic strands feels contrived; they hang loosely together by a precarious thread. Read full review
60
EmpireAmon WarmannJan 3, 2022
Too often The Electrical Life Of Louis Wain favours eccentricity over actual insight. But even when the tones jar, Cumberbatch’s vulnerable, layered performance always rings true. Read full review
60
The TelegraphTim RobeyJan 1, 2022
The distinctive charms of Wain’s aesthetic certainly come over, especially daubed across the lovely end credits, by which time this jumpy curio, with almost palpable relief, has laid itself to rest. Read full review
60
Paste MagazineBrianna ZiglerNov 5, 2021
The Electrical Life of Louis Wain can’t quite live up to its magnetic subject, but it’s still a warm celebration of a renegade artist and revolutionary forbearer of the funny cat video. Read full review
60
We Got This CoveredScott CampbellNov 2, 2021
The Electrical Life of Louis Wain is a biopic every bit as off-kilter and bizarre as the protagonist, but despite all of the whimsy and eccentricities, it finds itself missing a spark. Read full review
58
Entertainment WeeklyLeah GreenblattOct 22, 2021
The film can't seem to stop piling on idiosyncrasies, a kind of willful kookery that mixes uneasily with the more serious elements of personal tragedy and mental illness that run through it. Read full review
50
Boston GlobeMark FeeneyOct 21, 2021
From Sherlock Holmes to Doctor Strange, Cumberbatch has excelled at playing oddball heroes. Wain extends that line. As noted, though, things darken once oddball behavior becomes something more than that, and this darkening makes the second half of the movie feel slightly stilted and increasingly grim. Read full review
50
The PlaylistGregory EllwoodSep 13, 2021
You can certainly respect Sharpe for taking a big swing in this regard, but he can’t bring the proceedings back to earth when the audience needs some sort of emotional investment. This also ends up hampering Cumberbatch, who is giving one of the most committed performances of his life, but only to find it buried under all of the film’s extracurricular aspects. Read full review
50
Screen DailyFionnuala HalliganSep 13, 2021
Boxily framed, the film tries out several visual looks, wandering tonally through its own aesthetic maze. Read full review
50
IndieWireDavid EhrlichSep 13, 2021
Sharpe’s portrait is so determined to capture the full rainbow of Wain’s singular hues that it soon becomes a muddled soup of mismatched quirks. Read full review
40
The Irish TimesDonald ClarkeDec 30, 2021
Had we seen none of Cumberbatch’s earlier troubled intellectuals, we might embrace his performance with enthusiasm. But there are a few too many familiar manoeuvres for comfort in a performance that treads water throughout. Read full review
40
Los Angeles TimesJessica KiangOct 21, 2021
Tottering unsteadily between mining Wain’s vast repertoire of eccentricities for comedy and slathering them in pathos, the movie winds up so busily whimsical it forgets to actually be about anything. If you don’t know who Louis Wain was before you see it, you’ll only be fractionally more illuminated, and possibly a good deal more irritated, after. Read full review
40
The GuardianPeter BradshawSep 13, 2021
Director Will Sharpe is a potent talent whose early movies Black Pond and The Darkest Universe I loved – but this is a strained film, overwhelmed with self-consciousness at its own unearned period-biopic prestige. Read full review
38
Slant MagazineJake ColeSep 16, 2021
The film charts Louis Wain’s slow, long mental breakdown in ways that tackily oscillate between the pitying and the whimsical. Read full review
37
Washington PostAnn HornadayOct 20, 2021
The Electrical Life of Louis Wain tells its story with sympathy, but too many quirks and try-hard flourishes. In the welter and spin of tics, voice-overs, set pieces, images, flashbacks and dream states, the man himself gets as lost as a kitten in the rain. Read full review
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