A Monster Calls has three types of descriptors: pitch perfect, visually arresting but not narratively and thematically involving, and visually uninvolving and narratively arresting. The film feels like the screenwriter and the director randomly picking one for each scene and just going with it, while also not being lucky enough to hit “pitch perfect” until the third act. A Monster Calls is a film focusing on Colin, a young boy having to deal with his dying mother. Suddenly, a monster appears and Colin must find out the meaning of the monster as well as his own feeling about the coming events. That is one heck of a premise, and really when the actual drama finally gets informed by some genuine feeling rather than just dragging the audience along some beautiful watercolor stories interspersed with the fascinating picture of making Sigourney Weaver boring the movie soars, but that’s not for a while A Monster Calls is a movie that without the Monster can’t survive. The material barring the beautiful watercolors is trite and honestly a little boring, and when the Monster does decide to show up, which is very few times, the Monster is a successfully underwritten smartass, who seems to enjoy bullying Colin and abstractly telling him the message of the movie. There’s a scene in a great film from this year called The Nice Guys where Russell Crowe’s character talks to Ryan Gosling's character about a man who dies and sees Nixon in order to teach Gosling that there are two ways of looking at something. Gosling asks him why he’s just told this long boring story just to tell him that it is about two different ways of looking at one thing? That’s kind of what A Monster Calls feels like. I do in fact understand that I am a horrible person, but also a good person and that people contradict themselves, why did you tell me the long boring story to get there? Then again it is more asking why did you tell me the THREE uninvolving stories? The Monster each time it shows up tells a story, each one having to do with the main simple revelation. Sure, they are told with a beautiful and stimulating array of watercolors, but I still don’t understand why the already under compelling drama of the actual story of the film is being interrupted by even simpler, contradicting fairy tales. I mean, yes contradiction is intended as a theme of the film, but if there’s not a guided narrative for the momentary plot at that specific moment, the morals just muddle themselves. It might all look good but thematically it’s just a hot mess. It does play well too, though. For all the inconsistency, the actors at the center of the film are all suitably up to their jobs, though technically Lewis MacDougall, playing Colin, has to carry the entire movie on his shoulders. This isn’t because the other actors aren’t fine at their jobs, Toby Kebbell, Sigourney Weaver, Liam Neeson, and Felicity Jones are all making smart choices, but script-wise they are all such nonentities that MacDougall is left stranded in the middle of the movie having to carry the entire thing. MacDougall is very impressive, but I’m not sure any actor of his age could carry a full movie like this. It gets almost sadder and sadder to watch as this kid is pushing hard to leave his mark on a movie that he never could. Not because of any fault of his, but because the film just can’t work on its own. This is until the third act. The film finally catches its footing and morphs into what it was always meant to. A breathtaking image of grief informed by the finally revealed themes about humanity that were better explained in just the performances of Jackie than this entire movie. This came from the director of The Orphanage and The Impossible, J.A. Bayona, and it might be the first film he’s made that could be considered anything close to a disappointment. The overall package isn’t particularly rotten just bland. That is the most unfortunate thing of all. I give A Monster Calls a 5.5 out of 10.
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December 2017
CategoriesAuthorHello welcome to FilmAnalyst. My name is Stephen Tronicek, and I really like movies. This is a way to get my opinions out to people. Thank you for visiting. |