Find a lap. Purr when stroked. Pampered streetwise cat Beckett (Mo Gilligan) takes for granted the lucky hand he has been dealt when he is rescued and loved by Rose (Simone Ashley), a kind-hearted and passionate student researching bees at university. Beckett settles into a comfortable life in the country. literally becoming a fat cat, while Rose and her klutzy boyfriend Larry (Dylan Llewelly) continue her project. Rose has to deal with the mentor Professor Craven (Bill Nighy) who unbeknownst to her is a rival plotting to sabotage her work because of a childhood incident with a bee. When Beckett loses his ninth life and he is inadvertently locked out of the house he shares with Rose, fate steps in to set him on a transformative journey … You don’t know how one small insect can change the world. Deviating from your premise with a subplot that also involves non-human species is an unusual way to navigate narrative. First this is about a cat. Then it’s about bees. The plot lines in the screenplay by Ash Brannon, Ken Cinnamon, Karen Wengrod and Leland Cox intersect in the character of Rose and when Beckett gets lost, they diverge and he goes through the kind of kitty cat disasters that clock up to his requisite number of lives. He presents himself to Rose when he comes back in different forms with the different-coloured eyes that mark him out. Look at you, all charm with your big stupid face! Despite the excursion into thriller territory there’s a buoyancy to the drolly villainous performance of Nighy as the fake mentor/real rival who will be pretty familiar to anyone carrying out research in the world of academia. The message here is about complacency,, valuing friendship and what you’ve got, the pointlessness of holding grudges and seeking revenge (even if Nighy makes it sound very pleasurable). Beckett gets to have a real hero’s journey and Gilligan acquits himself well as a presumably Sarf Lahndon feline. The animation is pleasing, the characterisation is fun and it all comes together in the end in a kind of animal shelter afterlife with a real-life conclusion bound to tug at the heartstrings. Pop star Zayn Malik makes his movie debut voicing Cameron and Kirk. Directed by Christopher Jenkins. When you live and love with all your heart one life is all you need
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