Los Angeles Times

As 'Cat Person' ruins a viral sensation, 'Eileen' makes a stir of its own at Sundance

Emilia Jones and Nicholas Braun appear in "Cat Person" by Susanna Fogel, an official selection of the Premieres program at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival.

PARK CITY, Utah — Late into "Cat Person," the much-buzzed-about new movie adapted from Kristen Roupenian's 2017 short story of the same title, an ugly one-word text message appears in startling, screen-filling closeup. You'll know what the word is if you've read the story, and there's a decent chance you have, since it is one of the more widely circulated and ferociously debated fiction pieces published by the New Yorker in recent memory.

Still, to judge by the gasps that greeted that word at the movie's Sundance Film Festival premiere Saturday night, there were clearly many in the audience who hadn't. Presumably they were also unaware that the word is also the very last word of Roupenian's story, which, unlike the movie, does not proceed to devolve into a bloody, fiery and

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