Review: Catfight

A trifurcated allegorical satire with Looney Tunes-style violence, writer-director Onur Tukel's Catfight is exactly as advertised. Two women fighting each other to the death...or at least until one of them falls unconscious into a coma.

Separated into three acts, the film is set in contemporary New York. The world at large is embroiled in yet another war, as Craig Bierko's late night host smarmily reminds audiences before giving way to the latest round of fart jokes. Yet this is just so much white noise for our two nemeses, whose fairly privileged lives afford them a more myopic view of the situation. Veronica (Sandra Oh) lives in Soho with her husband Stanley (Damian Young), whose company reaps handsome profits from the war; her son Kip (Guillian Gioiello), whose artistic temperament she derides; and housekeeper Donna (Myra Lucretia Taylor), who graciously tolerates her wine-drinking mistress.

Former college friend Ashley (Anne Heche), on the other hand, lives in unfashionable Bushwick, struggling to sell her aggressively red-coloured paintings, and uncomfortably dependent on her partner Lisa (Alicia Silverstone), though at ease enough with the status quo to insist that Lisa should be the breadwinner since she is the more "masculine" one in their relationship. Roped into being a server for a party that Lisa is catering, Ashley runs into Veronica and it isn't too long before the brawling begins.

The first bout between the two leaves Veronica in a two-year-long coma, during which time the two women's fortunes are reversed. When Veronica awakens, she has lost everything whilst Ashley is on a professional and personal upswing. Her paintings are selling for crazy amounts of money and she's getting ready to start a family with Lisa, though her penchant for condescending to her assistant Sally (Ariel Kavoussi) remains very much intact as does the feud with Veronica, which reignites during an encounter in an art gallery. Fortunes are upended once again, leading to a third and final showdown in the countryside.

The fights between the two are outlandish spectacles of punishment and stamina, often set to famous classical overtures and sound effects that wouldn't be out of place in a martial arts movie. The sheer brutality is something to behold - a no-holds-barred punchfest that keeps going and going and going way beyond the point of gone. To Tukel and his lead actresses' credit, Veronica and Ashley remain unlikeable characters, softening so slightly as to be imperceptible as their circumstances are reduced. Tukel makes intriguing points throughout about how feuds often transcend their reason for existing. There may be moments of peace and understanding here and there, but they're never enough to offset the almost natural instinct to battle and blame at the slightest provocation.

Catfight

Directed by: Onur Tukel

Written by: Onur Tukel

Starring: Sandra Oh, Anne Heche, Alicia Silverstone, Damian Young, Myra Lucretia Taylor, Ariel Kavoussi, Ivana Milicevic, Dylan Baker, Titus Burgess, Jay O. Sanders, Craig Bierko, Guillian Gioiello