A competitive swimmer wakes up one morning to discover that his black cat has changed into a woman in Aquaphobe, a short film that doesn’t lean into its premise as much as it could. The feline Miriam snuggles up next to Alex (Stanley Browning of Stanley’s Mouth) after he returns from a night of partying to celebrate a victory.
In the morning, he thinks the human Miriam (Shabana Azeez of Why Are You Like This?) is a one-night stand whose name he’s forgotten. When she explains she used to be his cat, he takes the transformation in stride. She knows things about him that he doesn’t typically share, such as the songs he sings in the shower. The two quickly fall into a relationship, but Miriam’s fear of water threatens their happiness.
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Writer-director Melanie Easton of The Boy in the Woods (2012), Blackout (2010), and Nothing Left to Burn (2010) keeps the overall tone in Aquaphobe light, yet there seems to be a wackier movie lurking in the margins. Miriam has a little trouble with utensils, but she otherwise adapts to human form easily. Aside from a few stretches at night and a preference for animal prints and fishy foods, she shows little signs of her former life.
Viewers who remember Madison, the mermaid in 1984’s Splash, comically adjusting to life on foot in New York City might imagine Miriam exhibiting other catlike qualities, such as balancing on countertops or finding strings and fans fascinating. Her fear of water manifests mostly by not being able to turn off an overflowing bathtub, which doesn’t bother Alex nearly as much as her not wanting to attend one of his swim meets.
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The film doesn’t address how human Miriam bathes or tends to personal hygiene. Perhaps most puzzling is why Miriam transformed in the first place. For all the talk about cats being aloof, Alex fits that description more than she does. He forgets to feed feline Miriam while out celebrating his initial win, and he has enough friends to where he doesn’t complain about being lovelorn or lonely.
Although he wonders why Miriam can’t get over her fear of water enough to support him at the pool, it’s unclear what he’s doing to make this relationship work. Does he learn to relish a nap in the sun, or anchovies on pizza? Aquaphobe seems to want to explore how far couples will go to compromise, but the plot winds up treading water.
