‘Rat’: The movie that turns Pete Postlethwaite into a rodent
People turning into animals has been a bedrock of comedy for a long time, but only one of them stars Pete Postlethwaite and exists in the highly specific middle ground between Franz Kafka and The Muppets, with Bob Geldof thrown in for good measure.
That bizarre sense of eccentricity seeps through every pore of the film both on-screen and off, not least of all through the presence of Steve Barron as director, who amassed a litany of credits that veers uncontrollably between the classic, iconic, cult, and bizarre.
After all, no other filmmaker can lay claim to directing the music videos for A-ha’s ‘Take on Me’, Michael Jackson’s ‘Billie Jean’, and Madonna’s ‘Burning Up’ before segueing into features and helming the first live-action adaptation of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, sci-fi caper Coneheads, and Ricky Tomlinson’s Mike Bassett: England Manager.
From the mind of screenwriter Wesley Burrowes in his first produced script, Rat stars Postlethwaite and Imelda Staunton as Hubert and Conchita Flynn, an everyday married couple who get more than they bargained for when the husband returns home from a stint sinking pints at his local pub and suddenly finds himself transformed into a rodent.
Conchita thinks there’s a lesson to be learned, with his unexpected transformation designed to hammer home the consequences of his actions. Meanwhile, his son Pius thinks that he should be killed because he’s technically an animal now and no longer their patriarch, whereas Kerry Condon’s Marietta believes he should be treated with love, dignity, kindness, and respect despite no longer being human.
As well as being a loose interpretation and adaptation of Kafka’s The Metamorphosis – albeit with Hubert’s rat form being substituted in for Gregor Samsa’s salesman-turned-insect – the production company behind the film distributed by Universal was The Jim Henson Company, which specialised almost entirely in fabric-and-felt romps before deciding to take the plunge on the highly unusual but distinctly British film.
Boomtown Rats members Geldof and Pete Briquette composed the music, which only serves to make Rat stranger still despite the obvious word association. It’s an unusual sum of parts, and that’s without even mentioning the plot points that push the narrative further and further into the realms of lunacy.
A parable on how a lifetime of bad decision-making can impact an entire family, Rat also dabbles in its fair share of lunacy after a decision is reached to send Hubert to a maggot factory to be with his own kind, with the call exacerbated when he bites poor Conchita on the finger. However, Postlethwaite will not be denied, which leads to unexpected consequences.
Making his way back home and at death’s door from exhaustion after embarking on the arduous journey with his tiny little rodent legs, a doctor and an exorcist are called in to perform the last rights and make one final attempt to return Hubert to his human form. Fortunately, when he emerges from a fridge looking like the esteemed stage and screen actor once again, drafting in somebody used to dealing with demons turns out to be the right call.
As it turns out, the predicament can be passed on through biting on the finger, but by the end of the story, Hubert and Conchita are back together again as humans, albeit being joined at their local by another rat, this one wearing an earring awfully similar to that of unscrupulous scribe Phelim Spratt, who was so desperate to regale the world with the Flynn clan’s unusual story for monetary gain.
It sounds like a fever dream and the ramblings of a madman, but there really is a movie out there starring the renowned Postlethwaite and Academy Award winner Staunton as a married couple dealing with the trials and tribulations of being transformed into a rat, one that boasts Kafka as a touchstone and Henson’s outfit as producers, with a score co-composed by Geldof, all directed by the guy behind both ‘Billie Jean’, Ninja Turtles, and Coneheads. Truly, there’s nothing else quite like Rat.
