• Courtesy Of Studio Canal
• Dating is hell in Susanna Fogel's interesting but uneven adaptation of the viral short story.

Perhaps not since Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery" has New Yorker fiction gone as viral as "Cat Person." (And what did "viral" even mean in 1948?) Kristen Roupenian's 2017 short story about a college student's courtship with an older man spoke to legions of women who shared it on social media, touching off fierce debates about dating and sexual etiquette.

The author got a seven-figure book deal. In 2021, "Cat Person" landed in the spotlight again: A woman wrote an essay in Slate accusing Roupenian of appropriating details of her real life and relationship. The story became the center of a firestorm of questions about how much fiction writers owe to the truth.

Meanwhile, "Cat Person" became an indie film directed by Susanna Fogel ("The Flight Attendant," The Spy Who Dumped Me), which premiered last year at the Sundance Film Festival. Now you can see it on Hulu.

The deal

College student Margot (Emilia Jones, the likable star of CODA) meets thirtysomething Robert (Nicholas Braun) at the movie theater where she works. She texts her friend Taylor (Geraldine Viswanathan) to say he looks like the best friend character in a Judd Apatow movie. This does not deter her from flirting with him.

Awkward in person, Robert is more charming by text, and Margot gets hooked on their daily exchanges, waiting for amusing updates on his cats. True, when Robert shows up at the archaeology lab where she works, he spooks her, accidentally killing the queen of the ant colony that her professor (Isabella Rossellini) has spent years cultivating. And Margot just doesn't get his obsession with Han Solo as an icon of cool.

Taylor, who moderates a Subreddit called the Vagenda, sees Robert as toxic masculinity incarnate. But, on a visit home, Margot's mom (Hope Davis) opines that compromise is vital to relationships with men, and Margot's peers all seem to be sexually confused or busy getting wasted. So Margot attempts to take things with Robert to the next level.

It doesn't go well.

Will you like it?

Fans of the story may be startled to see Cat Person categorized on Hulu as a thriller. The suspense element turns out to be, essentially, padding to fill the two-hour run time. Fogel and screenwriter Michelle Ashford may have hoped that, by inserting Roupenian's brief slice-of-life tale into the framework of a feminist thriller in the vein of Gone Girl, they could also make the film marketable to a broader audience than the one that reads New Yorker stories.

Cat Person opens with an oft-quoted (actually paraphrased) sentiment from Margaret Atwood: "Men are afraid that women will laugh at them. Women are afraid that men will kill them." This thesis is a good way of splitting the difference between a critique of gender relations and a thriller, and it gives viewers a key to understanding the story's most notorious scene, an incredibly unsexy yet consensual sexual encounter. For those who wonder, Why is she going along with that?, the implicit threat of violence is their answer.

That awful sex scene is also the strongest in the movie. Staged as a surreal dialogue between Margot and several dissociated pieces of herself, it elicits the exact level of cringe it should. Equally insightful and funny (in a twisted way) are the scenes in which Margot uses fantasy to delude herself about her romantic chemistry with Robert — for instance, imagining him discussing her with his therapist. Though we don't get Robert's perspective, we can intuit that each of them is interacting primarily with a version of the other one they've invented. Such are the hazards of online communication.

But is Robert just a self-involved dork, or is he dangerous? Fogel teases the latter possibility with scenes of menace that turn out to be in Margot's imagination. While we grasp her reasons for being afraid, these fake-outs get old quickly. The added subplot in the lab is ham-handed (though Rossellini's hamming is always welcome), and the filmmakers give the story a new climax and denouement that muddle its message without putting anything concrete or satisfying in its place.

In short, Cat Person is a genuinely tense, discussion-worthy film as long as it sticks close to its source material. When it doesn't, it wobbles and wanders. Although Braun gives a spot-on performance as the kind of guy who thinks he's "nice" — until he isn't — the thriller material feels imposed and parodic rather than growing organically from his character.

It's a shame, but at least the adaptation preserves the uncompromising core of "Cat Person." Let's be grateful for small favors: No one has tried to turn the story into a quirky rom-com.

If you like this, try...

Fresh (2022; Hulu): While Cat Person plays with horror and thriller elements, this dark (and sometimes gruesome) comedy commits to them. A young woman sick of dating apps thinks she's found the perfect partner — only there's a catch.

Smooth Talk (1985; Criterion Channel, Kanopy, rentable): For another example of an influential short story about gender relations and violence adapted to film, try Joyce Chopra's version of Joyce Carol Oates' "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" — starring Laura Dern and the late Treat Williams.

Booksmart (2019; rentable): Fogel cowrote this clever, touching comedy about two nerdy teens up to no good. If you like your comedies from a female Gen Z perspective even more outrageous, try Emma Seligman's Bottoms (2023; MGM+, Prime Video) and the disturbingly hilarious Shiva Baby (2020; Max, rentable).