'The Electrical Life of Louis Wain' ending explained: How Wain spent his final years?
“He has made the cat his own. ... English cats that do not look and live like Louis Wain cats are ashamed of themselves.” is what H.G. Wells had to say about Louis Wain's work, and that certainly is the case. While Louis Wain's art long predates the internet's obsession with cats, it does that a few things in common, the most obvious one being that the art tends to take on a life of its own.
However, Wain suffered the tragic fate many artists do, a brief moment of happiness followed by years of pain. And 'The Electrical Life of Louis Wain' with all its early whimsy and tragedy, marks this shift. If you're looking for other movie titles to check out, you might want to consider -- 'Electric Jesus', 'Home Sweet Home Alone' and 'Apex'.
RELATED ARTICLES
'The Electrical Life of Louis Wain': 5 things you need to know about Louis Wain
'The Electrical Life of Louis Wain': Inside Louis Wain's marriage to Emily Richardson
The first half of the movie paints a clear but fast picture -- Louis Wain, the eldest Wain siblings finds himself saddled with the financial burden of caring for five sisters and his mother. Although his plans and ideas are plenty, art is second nature to him and thus is no more than a means to pay the bills. It is not until his courtship and marriage to Emily Richardson that there is a shift, Wain finds his muse in cats which over time, turns into an obsession, filled with wild theories. The wilder his ideas get, the more Wain seems to lose his grip on reality.
With an increasing amount of debt and with Wain's erratic mood swings, the Wain sisters are left with no option but to admit Louis to an asylum, where he is housed in the pauper ward, on account of their dire financial situation. However, despite this, Wain continues to draw images of cats, although now his art style seemed to have changed from anthropomorphized versions to psychedelic ones.
A chance meeting Dan Ryder (Adeel Akhtar) a man who he met years ago as a freelance artist comes to his aid, and manages to set up a fund to help Wain live in better conditions.
Wain's final years are spent living in a hospital with a garden colony of cats. The movie initially points out that Wain was always on the move, for him to deal with the constant barrage of ideas in his mind. The end of the movie is quite the contrast to the eclectic man we see earlier on -- despite a turbulent life filled with trials and tribulations, Wain lived out his final years in peace, creating art of his beloved muse, holding his wife's advice true to heart -- to always capture the beauty in things, no matter how dark his own life may seem.
You can watch 'The Electrical Life of Louis Wain' from November 5, 2021, onwards on Amazon Prime Video.
