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★★★★☆
8 December 2016
A movie review of A MONSTER CALLS. |
“How does the story begin?” Conor O’Malley (Lewis MacDougall)
Who would have guessed a fantasy film, involving Liam Neeson as a giant speaking tree, would make grown men cry? Myself, one did not tear up, but being choked up yes. Sentimentality is rife in cinema, and to actually discover a movie that earns its emotions is uncommon. The opening grabs us: A church collapses as the lead boy tries to save his mother. He is haunted. We become haunted. To worry for a mainstream movie protagonist’s psychological well-being seldom crops up. James Bond, Ant-Man, Kylo Ren are flimsy at best, inane at worst. A boy about to lose his mother, while verbal sparring with a talking yew, is not a straightforward hero.
Who would have guessed a fantasy film, involving Liam Neeson as a giant speaking tree, would make grown men cry? Myself, one did not tear up, but being choked up yes. Sentimentality is rife in cinema, and to actually discover a movie that earns its emotions is uncommon. The opening grabs us: A church collapses as the lead boy tries to save his mother. He is haunted. We become haunted. To worry for a mainstream movie protagonist’s psychological well-being seldom crops up. James Bond, Ant-Man, Kylo Ren are flimsy at best, inane at worst. A boy about to lose his mother, while verbal sparring with a talking yew, is not a straightforward hero.
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Too old to be a kid and too young to be a man, The Monster observes. Childhood as nightmare. Fairy tale used as allegory, the way it should. Liam Neeson’s wonderfully gravelly voice here is magnified sonorously. The audience and Conor have no choice but to listen. At low ebb for the latter, The Monster appears. Intriguing questions mount. Who is this colossus? Does he represent those within and/or those external? What does he want? Is he a much-needed saviour? Tormentor? Educator? “I know everything about you… The truth that you hide.” The Monster is not a handholder, he enigmatically (and to Conor’s consternation) makes him look into the psychological abyss.
The Monster will tell Conor three stories, and in return the boy will deliver a fourth, which will be his truth. What could someone so young be hiding from himself? The Monster’s parables are ambitiously morally ambiguous. The climax is unexpected. What precedes is a mix of striking visuals and tragedy.
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A MONSTER CALLS is even sadder than a Roald Dahl novel. Isolation appears to be precariously inevitable. His young mother Elizabeth Clayton (Felicity Jones) is dying. Boys/young men without their mothers have form in cinema (LARS AND THE GIRL, CHARLIE COUNTRYMAN). Conor’s father (Toby Kebbell) is largely absent. The only living relative is a cantankerous maternal grandmother (Sigourney Weaver sporting a decent Brit accent) – who we later work out why her defences are so high. Conor has no friends, and is being bullied mercilessly at school in the vein of LET THE RIGHT ONE IN and THE WORLD OF US. It is clear where Conor’s anger comes from. For youngsters in the audience, coming of age frustration is empathetically present. So, alone and put upon has us wondering if he is cracking under the strain.
Do not worry, catharsis is on the cards, though thankfully unobvious. Shock moments smatter the runtime. Humour too – The Monster continually addresses Conor O’Malley by his full name, like Rob Lowe’s character’s conversational propensity in PARKS AND RECREATION. A MONSTER CALLS is arguably about striving to heal in the face of overwhelming resentment.
A creature feature where the emotional epiphanies are just as gripping as the VFX, who is this film actually aimed at? Everyone.
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