A lonely neuroscientist transfers her cat’s consciousness into one of her coma patients. But when the cat gets his tongue, the fur starts to fly.

SYNOPSIS:

DR SUSAN ROBERTS (60), a brilliant neuroscientist, has dedicated her life to the treatment of coma patients at the San Gorgonia Institute. Her natural reserve can be mistaken for aloofness and she’s never found it easy to connect with her outgoing daughter RUTH (25). She’s much more comfortable in work or hanging out with her elderly cat, FLUFFY. With her devoted lab assistant JACK (late 20s), Susan has been developing a process to transfer thoughts from one mind to another. But she still needs to convince the Ethics Committee that the experimental procedure is not just technically possible but morally sound.

When a homeless COMA PATIENT (late 30s) is on the verge of being sent, as a hopeless case, to a care facility where his life will almost certainly be cut short, Susan spots an opportunity. With Jack’s help, she transfers the consciousness of her aging cat into the mind of the unnamed homeless guy. She smuggles them both out of the Institute and cares for them at home where she sets about rehabilitating the confused man/cat. Susan names him KITT – short for ‘Kinetic Interspecies Thought Transference’. At first, KITT is alarmed to find himself in human form and clings to his cat-like behaviours, continuing his feud with the tomcat next door whenever he isn’t sleeping for 20 hours a day. Then, under Susan’s tutelage, he learns to blend in as a human man. All the while, he’s troubled by flashbacks and dreams - the remnants of the homeless guy’s consciousness.

Susan’s house is thrown into chaos when she has to look after her grand-daughter TILLY (5) while Ruth deals with a work emergency at her veterinarian clinic. Tilly strikes up an easy friendship with KITT, who she recognises is Fluffy. Tilly insists on Susan bringing KITT to the clinic and the visit causes KITT to question whether he has a soul when he learns the harsh truth about what happens to the really sick animals. He pesters Susan to take him to a church to find a priest and she keeps fobbing him off – she’d rather focus on his rehabilitation. He takes off on his own instead and ends up in a police cell after a violent encounter. Susan panics and ups the ante, adding punishments to her behaviour modification programme for KITT. Jack is alarmed by this development and even more so by Susan’s refusal to help the man trapped in KITT’s head. He leaves her to it, focussing his energies instead on caring for her patients at the Institute and completing his PhD.

When Ruth’s attempts to flirt with KITT go right over his head, it causes Ruth to wonder what exactly the deal is between KITT and her mother? Ruth goes snooping in Susan’s basement, uncovers the truth and blows the whistle to the Chair of the Ethics Committee, DR GARCIA (late 50s). At the disciplinary hearing, Ruth finally confronts her mother directly for her apparent lack of interest and their fractured relationship begins to heal. Susan is permitted to retire rather than face the sack, handing the reins of the project over to Jack. Susan and Jack reverse the procedure resulting in the homeless guy waking from his coma, the first procedure having kick-started his brain. But what about Fluffy?

All is revealed at Susan’s 61st birthday party. Fluffy is alive and well and joined by Tiger, a little kitten in need of a home. Susan leaves the felines to get acquainted and enjoys spending time with her family and friends, in stark contrast to her lonely birthday a year previously.

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‘Save The Cat’ is a feel-good family movie about allowing people to be their true selves and accepting them for who they are. It’s in the spirit of ‘Big’ and ‘Freaky Friday’, the kind of stories I grew up with that seamlessly blended comedy and pathos and made me feel everything could be made right in the world – it’s what I think we’re all looking for right meow.