The Electrical Life of Louis Wain | 2021 | PG-13 | – 3.4.5

Why is “The Electrical Life of Louis Wain” rated PG-13? The MPAA rating has been assigned for “some thematic material and strong language.” The Kids-In-Mind.com evaluation includes a few kissing scenes, discussions of premarital sex, discussions of the start of a young woman’s menstrual cycle, a diagnosis of breast cancer, a few people dying and a couple are shown dead, a dead cat, scenes of people suffering from mental illnesses, a man falling off a bus, recurring nightmares of drowning, a young woman being diagnosed with schizophrenia, many arguments, and at least 2 F-words and other strong language. Read our parents’ guide below for details on sexual content, violence & strong language.

---

The life of 19th century British artist Louis Wain (Benedict Cumberbatch) was changed when his unusual paintings of cats brought him fame. Also with Claire Foy, Taika Waititi, Aimee Lou Wood, Andrea Riseborough, Sophia Di Martino, Hayley Squires, Jamie Demetriou, Olivier Richters, Stacy Martin, Toby Jones, Dorothy Atkinson, Adeel Akhtar and the voice of Olivia Colman. Directed by Will Sharpe. [Running Time: 1:51]

The Electrical Life of Louis Wain SEX/NUDITY 3

 – A woman kisses a man, they kiss again, and he closes her door as she sits on a bed and they begin to undress (sex is implied). A man and a woman in the background of a scene kiss passionately in a wine cellar.
► A woman finds a man in a men’s room and they talk about why he left a theater performance; she kisses him and another man comes out of a stall and washes his hands as the embarrassed couple stands nearby. A husband and his wife hug, kiss, and hold hands in several scenes. A man and a woman look at each other across a table and seem smitten. Men and women dance in a pub. A husband and his wife wearing sleeping clothes lie in bed sleeping together.
► A young woman says, “I had relations in the graveyard and now I have leprosy,” as she spins round in a room and laughs. A woman asks another woman if she is “ill at ease” sharing a floor with a man when the woman moves into a house as the governess to three young girls. A man thinks about having a romantic life and a voice over describes him having a feeling that “sparkled through his loins.” Men describe women as “well-bosomed vixens.” A man asks a woman, “May I present myself to you naked,” as a way of apologizing to her. A woman confesses to reading a man’s journal and he asks her about what she thought of his disturbing visions. Young women talk about wanting to find men to marry. A doctor tells a woman that she has terminal cancer of the breast.
► A man enters a woman’s room without knocking and we see that her robe is off the shoulder (we see her shoulder); she is embarrassed and tells the man to leave. We see drips of blood on a floor and a teenage girl cries in her room; a woman consoles her and explains what is happening (her menstrual cycle has started); the girl exclaims to her family, “I’m a woman.” A shirtless man is shown boxing another man and we see his bare chest, abdomen and back. Men swim wearing swimming costumes of the period (we see bare shoulders and legs from just above the knee). Men are shown shirtless with towels wrapped around their waists after swimming in a pool (bare chests and abdomens and backs are shown). A woman wears a dress that reveals cleavage. Women in their underclothes swim in an ocean. A man wearing long underwear cries and pleads for help when he imagines the ship he is traveling in is sinking.

The Electrical Life of Louis Wain VIOLENCE/GORE 4

 – A man yells and throws chairs and other items in a room as his sisters and a man try to stop him; we see him hospitalized in a psychiatric facility. Two men box in a couple of scenes and in one scene one man is punched hard in the face twice (he has a bloody nose); he is knocked out in another match.
► A man carries a breakfast tray to his wife’s room as a cat paws at her blanket; the man leaves the room abruptly and it is understood that the woman has died. A man finds his cat dead and we a voiceover says, “He wept without ceasing for years.” A sick woman lies in a bed and we learn that she later died from influenza. A man falls off the back of a bus and we are told that he was in a coma for a long time.
► A man on a sailing ship panics and imagines that the ship is sinking: he pounds on the door for someone to come to help him from drowning, he sees the porthole shatter and water pours in and covers him (we see that his sink is overflowing and that the ship is not sinking), and when the porter opens the door we see the man wearing long underwear that appears to be stained with urine at the crotch.
► A man is shown with dirt on his face and clothing and he says that he was attacked by a bull. A woman yells at a man in several scenes; in one scene, she follows him through the house holding a kitchen knife while yelling. A woman tells her husband that she is in a lot of pain (from cancer). A man is informed that his mother died from influenza.
► A man hyperventilates and runs out of a theater performance of “The Tempest” because of his fear of drowning. A woman yells at another woman and fires her, blaming her for causing the family to be a laughingstock. A man reprimands another man for the way he works and takes chances. A woman yells at a man for squandering their inheritance and he tells her that he did not copyright his images. A man complains that a member of his staff was “poached” by another publication. People crowded on a train car are shown surrounded by sheep, a donkey, a duck a parrot, and a man holds a dog on his lap. A woman hides in a wardrobe and is discovered by a man and a woman that look for her and the man yells for her calling her “Governess.” Several siblings yell at their brother for his relationship with a woman that is the governess to the younger siblings. A man runs during a heavy thunderstorm and lightning flashes around him. We hear that a German U-Boat sunk a supply ship carrying merchandise produced by a man.
► A boy runs through his house calling for his father and saying, “Save me, I’m drowning,” as water washes down the stairs toward him (this is a recurring nightmare). A boy is shown being bullied by other boys and mocked for his appearance. A man swims frantically and he splashes water on people sitting on the side of the pool. A man wanders out of a psychiatric hospital and into a forest where he stands alone. A man yells and pounds on a dining table in a dining room (other diners stare at him).
► A doctor tells a woman that she has terminal cancer of the breast. A man offers a man “poverty wages” for his illustrations. A young girl cries after having a nightmare and a woman comforts her. A woman seems to be mocking another woman when she asks if she got a little confused about the lavatories (gossip spread about the woman going into the men’s room to find a man) and because the woman is a member of the servile class if this was her first time at the theater. A man tells another man that he won’t be able to use his illustrations anymore because photography is taking the place of drawings. A man pushes a woman dressed as a man in a wheelchair while an attendant chases them, saying that the golf club is for gentlemen only. A wife asks her husband, “What’s going on in that funny little head of yours?” A man talks to his wife about fearing what he will do when she isn’t there any longer (after she dies). A woman tells a man that he cannot run away from his grief. A woman is reprimanded by her employer and she cries. A man imagines hearing his dead wife’s voice on a radio. A man imagines a scene from the future where food is served on floating trays. We hear that a family’s father died and the eldest sibling is now responsible for keeping them afloat. We hear that a man controls the chaos in his mind by always moving. A man and a woman find a kitten alone in the rain and take it in, to care for it. We hear that a man died of gout and he is shown slumped over a table with his face in a plate in a restaurant. A man talks about a therapy that would incorporate electricity (it sounds like electroshocks) that he thinks would cure his sister’s schizophrenia. A character says, “I vomited immediately.”
► A young woman is diagnosed schizophrenic and is taken away to a hospital. A man is shown to have a harelip with mustache covering it for most of the movie. A woman describes the stench in a man’s room being quite unbearable. A young woman says, “I had relations in the graveyard and now I have leprosy,” as she spins round in a room and laughs.

The Electrical Life of Louis Wain LANGUAGE 5

 – About 2 F-words, 1 scatological term, 1 anatomical term, 1 mild obscenity, name-calling (daft, foolish, huge ego, imbecilic behavior, unfit, Bohemian, whimsical, bourgeois game, drip, pig, mysterious, alarming, raving lunatic, callously unloyal, ugly lie, poisonous, doomed, tainted, mystical gods, maligned, silly, blind prejudice, corrupted, violent shadow, lonely, renegade, outcast, revolting, clumsily peculiar, ridiculous, nosey, boring, ugly sausage, blabberist mouth), exclamations (gosh, alas), 4 religious exclamations (e.g. Thank God, Oh My God, and people say a prayer over a meal). | profanity glossary |

The Electrical Life of Louis Wain SUBSTANCE USE

 – Men drink and smoke in a pub while playing pool, a woman accuses a man of being drunk, people drink in a restaurant, and a man drinks a glass of sherry. A man smokes a cigarette in a house, and people are shown smoking cigarettes and cigars in a few scenes.

The Electrical Life of Louis Wain DISCUSSION TOPICS

 – Cats, electricity, mental illness, schizophrenia, delusions of grandeur, obstacles, social statue, pain, grief, changing attitudes, copyrights, forgiveness, Isaac Newton, social prejudices, H.G. Wells, loneliness, debt, perspective, physical differences, embarrassment, anxiety.

The Electrical Life of Louis Wain MESSAGE

 – The electricity of love never dies.