Review #1,397: 'Catfight' (2016)

As the title may suggest, the story of Onur Tukel's Catfight revolves around two women beating each other to a bloody pulp. It's where the film finds its most laughs, and these scenes - played out over the years like a modern-day The Duellists - don't pull their punches, although the frequent smackdowns are imagined in a very slapstick-y style, complete with over-the-top slappy sounds effects. The first of these fights takes place at a pompous party in a Manhattan apartment, where suit-wearing types are toasting a big deal that will serve them well in an upcoming war. It's where down-on-her-luck artist Ashley (Anne Heche) is helping her girlfriend Lisa (Alicia Silverstone) cater and serve drinks, and where she encounters trophy wife Veronica (Sandra Oh) for the first time in decades. Veronica's passive-aggressive snootiness is too much for Ashley, and they end up beating tens tons of shit out of each other in a stairwell.

It's the first of three encounters between the ladies over the course of the film, and it leaves Veronica in a coma for the next two years. When she finally wakes up, she is hit by the news that both her husband and son are dead, and all of her money has been drained by hospital care and a downturn in the economy brought on by the ongoing war. Ashley, on the other hand, is doing incredibly well for herself. Her angry and confrontational art has suddenly become popular in these troubled times, and she milks it for all it's worth. Yes, Catfight is set in an alternate near-future, where the U.S. are engaged in a bloody conflict that has seen the draft reinstated and where everybody seems to be a special kind of terrible person. We are kept up-to-date over the years by a talk show that everyone seems to watch, complete with a comedy monologue to-camera which always ends with a fart gag. It's a grotesque reality, and the film aims its jabs at the left, the right, the rich, and the poor, and even finds time to giggle at crazy doomsday preppers and those stupid enough to buy crappy art.

It's original satire that may catch you off-guard if you don't know to expect going into the film, but it's also awkwardly on-the-nose. We loathe Veronica but come to sympathise with her when she is stripped of her family and assets and is forced to stay with her former help, and the same then happens with Ashley in reverse. Their stories mirror each other almost scene-by-scene, and while I'm sure the director felt that such an approach would be clever and off-the-wall, it comes across as plain lazy writing. There's no subtlety to the way the film executes its satire, and while this may be the point given the way the central characters go at each other like rabid dogs, it blunts the film's edge and gives it a lighter, almost cartoonish feel. Catfight works best when it allows the darkness to creep in, especially when Oh and Heche are simply allowed to spit venom at each other. It's saved by the strength of the performances, with Oh turning in an especially terrific performance and again questioning why she can't seem to land bigger roles. Catfight is an interesting story told with immaturity and a heavy hand, but with a touch more seasoning, Tukel could be one for the future.


Directed by: Onur Tukel
Starring: Sandra Oh, Anne Heche, Alicia Silverstone, Amy Hill, Myra Lucretia Taylor, Ariel Kavoussi
Country: USA

Rating: ***

Tom Gillespie