This film about the eccentric Victorian artist famed for his cat portraits presents a far-too-quaint and romanticised vision of mental illness.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Sep 19, 2024

A biopic that offers a finely tuned performance from Benedict Cumberbatch, but that, apart from some visual constructions, becomes boring and a little redundant. [Full review in Spanish]

| Original Score: 5/10 | Sep 10, 2023

The more “Electrical Life” goes on, the more buried it becomes, sometimes literally, under a sea of quirk rather than delving into just how far Wain fell and how his vulnerability left him exploited.

| Original Score: C- | Dec 19, 2022

An overdose of whimsy that’s focus is often distracted like a cat chasing a laser.

| Original Score: 2.5/5 | Oct 21, 2022

The Electrical Life of Louis Wain is not quite what you expect from a 20th-century biopic. For all of its morose almost Dickensian undertones, it is filled with the whimsical, brightly colored, and an almost psychedelic world that Wain saw around him.

| Original Score: A+ | Sep 24, 2022

The Electrical Life of Louis Wain follows a familiar formula, but director Will Sharpe’s signature style – and Cumberbatch’s playful performance – set it apart.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Sep 1, 2022

Beyond its accomplished aesthetic and undeniable quality of performances, what stays with you is a love story shadowed by sickness and death from the perspective of a wounded yet relentlessly creative mind... [Full review in Spanish]

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Jul 5, 2022

... A biopic that wants to resemble the protagonist's drawings (although it doesn't have the courage), though instead ends up being a cartoonish pastiche of this British artist, inventor and entrepreneur. [Full review in Spanish]

| Jun 10, 2022

Mr. Wain dazzles even as it tries to cover more history than it should. {Full review in Spanish]

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jun 9, 2022

A biopic about love, survival, art and kittens. Full review in Spanish

| Original Score: 3/5 | Apr 29, 2022

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.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Mar 28, 2022

The Electrical Life of Louis Wain will break your heart. It is a thoughtfully crafted, emotional portrait of a sensitive artist who defied norm and convention to birth a legacy that is unique in every sense of the word.

| Mar 23, 2022

Scratch beneath the surface, and what you're left with is just another middling biopic that's been smothered by its zig-zagging mood swings.

| Mar 10, 2022

Will Sharpe brought us the wonderfully haunting and darkly comedic world of Flowers ... With The Electrical Life of Louis Wain, Sharpe as director and writer brings Louis Wains art and persona to life in this sparkling and beautiful film.

| Mar 8, 2022

Despite a lot of uneven moments, The Electrical Life of Louis Wain is at its heart a story of love, strength, and cats. Even the hardest heart would find that combination difficult to resist.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Mar 3, 2022

The Electrical Life of Louis Wain ends up feeling like an innocent and inspired biopic that will come and go without much anger or note.

| Feb 12, 2022

"Poignantly surreal, especially for feline fanatics..."

| Original Score: 7/10 | Feb 3, 2022

It's an effervescent movie, one that reflects the colourful whimsy of Wain's work and a far more vivid image of Victorian and Edwardian England than your usual period film.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jan 14, 2022

While often a quirky & lovingly endearing ode to Wain's vibrant creativity, this isn't quite the rosy film the marketing paints it out to be.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Jan 6, 2022

Will Sharpe uses overlain film images and kaleidoscopic effects to evoke the world as Louis saw it. Cumberbatch's performance is restrained and intelligent, but the plot meanders slightly, and a voiceover from Olivia Colman is clunky, redundant.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jan 6, 2022