A Street Cat Named Bob

A film review by S D Anugyan

Cast: Luke Treadaway, Bob, Ruta Gedmintas, Joanne Froggatt, Anthony Head
Director: Roger Spottiswoode
Writers: James Bowen, Garry Jenkins, Tim John
Based on the bestseller by John Bowen
imdb.com – wikipedia.org

No hugging, dear. I’m British. We only show affection to dogs and horses.”
– What a Girl Wants, 2003 film

I was a bit slow coming to A Street Cat Named Bob. The film was made almost ten years ago, and I didn’t even know about it until someone gave me the DVD last year. As the cover showed a smiling bearded human and a feline, I put it aside as probable sentimental tosh, and it sat on the shelf all this time – until I felt in the mood for sentimental tosh. The film knocked my prejudices on the head, as it was anything but that; which later I find out everyone seemed to know except me. Indeed, Punya wrote a review of the book over a decade ago, highlighting that fact.

I don’t wish to go over ground she has already covered so well with the book, but wish to examine some other aspects which struck me. The fact that the film is a decade old and still speaks so loudly and clearly suggests a timelessness, that it will always be relevant, with different generations discovering new things. Indeed, the homelessness and drug addiction depicted in the film I still see every day around me in the UK. The gruelling cold turkey scenes actually reminded me of Gene Hackman’s performance in the second French Connection film. It is a problem that has not gone away.

Yet what elevates the film to ensure it doesn’t go to the opposite extreme from sentimentality and become depressingly morbid is, of course, Bob, playing himself. Much as his presence transforms James Bowen’s life, it takes over the film in numerous ways. In the DVD extras (yes, I’m one of those people who watches those) the cast and crew reveal just how much Bob would dictate his scenes. They continually had to adapt to how he wished each scene to unfold, and their willingness to do so showed their love and respect for him.

In contrast, I remember the Korean film Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter… and Spring. Everybody said how wonderful it was, but it gave me the creeps, mainly because of the early frog-torturing scene. Something didn’t sit right for me, that it wasn’t just an arty metaphor. Sure enough, on watching the DVD extras, I discovered that they actually did torture the frog in the name of art, but decided to disguise that because of the English audience. That was one of the times I realised that the Brits – not just the English – have a reputation for animal welfare. An Italian once told me he thought it amazing we have a Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. ‘Don’t you have an animal society in Italy?’ I asked. ‘Sì,’ he said, ‘for killing them.’

A Street Cat Named Bob goes a long way in revealing just why we shouldn’t be torturing animals, in case that wasn’t obvious, and it does so without getting preachy. The woman James and Bob form a relationship with is a ‘level four vegan’, but James isn’t, might never be, and Bob certainly would never be. Any morality conveyed in the film is through the subtle complexity revealed to be present in the relationship between animals and humans. That there is such a unique intelligence evident in a cat implies, insists, that it is in other animals too. Even a frog.

In my review of Madhuri’s Flying Lady with Cat, I refer to the book Mystery of the White Lions by Linda Tucker – and find myself having to do so again, as Tucker was intrigued by the deeper relationship between felines and humans. Her evidence both archaeological and mythological suggested that cats and humans have always had an equal partnership, right back to prehistoric times. This is confirmed in her interview with the shaman Credo Mutwa who recites an African praise song beginning ‘You are the cat, tamer of human beings, not tamed by them’. The song is too long to include here, but depicts cats as our guardians against things seen and unseen, and ends, ‘…the gods and ancestors will bring eternal suffering upon any human who stoops to harm you’.

The film provides further evidence that it is cats who are taming us, not the other way round!

So despite my initial prejudices against the film, it has proven itself on so many levels. It provides a remarkably authentic portrait of life in Britain today, for one thing, and does so with humour, life and love despite some of the grim circumstances depicted. By focusing so much on Bob, it also highlights the peculiar relationship British people have with their animals. Of course, such a thing is not limited to any one country, but it does seem a large distinguishing feature here. I have known Chinese tourists to comment in wonder how residents talk to their pets as if they were human beings.

Economists recently became very interested in the burgeoning pet industry in South Korea. When looking deeper at the phenomenon, they started to theorise that when a nation’s attitude to animals shifts from their being a mere commodity, to them being individuals in their own right, it is an indicator of a healthy economic system.

But the situation depicted in the film was of someone in a terrible economic plight, who was nevertheless willing to sacrifice his own immediate needs for those of a cat… a pivotal moment. I am reminded of these lines from the Tao Te Ching:

When the Great Tao is lost sight of –
Then people have to try to be kind and gentle

James was not ‘trying’ to help Bob, it just came instinctively. I know other people here who put the needs of their animals first, often at great cost to themselves; and I can’t help wondering if it isn’t something innate in the British psyche. Or perhaps, as suggested in the quotation at the beginning of this article, the strong relationship with animals was developed as a way to avoid contact with other human beings!

Whatever the reason, it strikes me that for all the nationalists banging on about a golden past, Spitfires and warm beer, if they want to sing their country’s praises they should be focusing on characteristics that make the place worthwhile now, in the present – such as kindness to animals, which may well remain here forever.

The book, the film, and how they have been received, imply that it is indeed so.

A Street Cat Named Bob – Punya reviews a bestseller by James Bowen (2013)
Flying Lady with Cat – A review by S D Anugyan of Madhuri’s book of poems and paintings in celebration of cats (2023)