A Monster Calls

The Monster appears before the young boy usually every night, and always just after midnight at 12:07.  He is a towering giant made out of roots, sticks and the bark of an old tree that resides on a hill near the boy's home.  He sort of looks like a more serious and somber version of Groot from Guardians of the Galaxy.  However, instead of the low, growling voice of Vin Diesel, the Monster has the low, growling voice of Liam Neeson.  There is a somewhat imposing presence to the Monster.  When he is mad, his eyes glow red, and there seems to be a fire building up within his very body.  But usually, he is very docile and gentle toward the boy.  He seems to want to help him with something.

The boy in question is Conor (Lewis MacDougall), who seems to be about 11.  He's at an awkward stage in his life, which the movie describes as "too old to be a child, but too young to be an adult".  Conor is alone a lot.  He has no friends at school, is bullied by a group of other boys, and despite some concern from his teachers, doesn't have anyone that he can reach out to.  He lives alone at home with his mother (Felicity Jones from Rogue One), who is terminally ill, so Conor has had to take on a lot of responsibilities around the house.  There are occasional visits from his grandma (Sigourney Weaver), whom he is not close with, and once in a while his dad (Toby Kebbell) stops by.  But dad lives in L.A. with his new family, while Conor and his mother are in England, so it's hard for them to be close.  Usually, it is mostly Conor and his mother alone together, and although his mom always tries to be hopeful about the new treatments she is receiving, we can tell that she is slipping away.

Conor can see this as well, and is plagued by nightmares of being alone in the world.  It is on one of these sleepless nights that the Monster visits him for the first time.  It tells Conor that it will continue to appear before him on each night, and during each visit, the Monster will tell Conor a tale.  There will be three tales in all.  When the Monster is done with his stories, then it will be time for Conor to tell his own story.  The boy does not understand, but the Monster insists, and spins stories of far off lands.  They are stories of Princes, Witches, Kings and an "Invisible Man".  The Monster also figures into all of the stories.  In one of the more stunning decisions of Spanish director J.A. Bayona (The Impossible), we witness these stories brought to life in beautiful animation that mixes watercolors with CG and stop motion.  They are beautiful to look at, but they each hold an important lesson that Conor must discover for himself.  Is The Monster here to help him and his mother, or has it come before Conor for an even greater purpose?

A Monster Calls is one of the most heartbreaking and beautiful family films I have ever seen.  And yes, even though it deals with some very dark and serious subject matter, it is a movie that I think will speak loud and clearly to children.  There are some critics who have complained that the movie is too dark and depressing for its target audience of young viewers. (The themeatic content is also why the movie has been given a PG-13 rating, although any child around the age of 10 should be able to handle it.) My answer to this complaint is that maybe it just seems that way to them because we so seldom get movies for children that are this mature and refuse to pull any punches.  Just like Kubo and the Two Strings, this is a movie that is not afraid to show the darker side of family and childhood.  The fact that the film is unflinching, honest and sad is perhaps the best aspect, and what drew me so much into the film.

Does every movie for younger viewers have to be happy and full of cheerful characters and bright music?  How are kids supposed to learn about feelings like isolation and despair if movies keep on sugarcoating them or skipping them completely?  I'm not saying I want every family film to be brutal and dark, but it is nice once in a while when a movie like this takes an honest look at the darker side of childhood, and gives it straight.  Were A Monster Calls marketed to adults, it would be seen as a powerful and emotional drama, which it most certainly is.  Instead, it's a "family film", so people insist that it's too dark for its intended audience.  I say kids are smarter than most people give credit, and they can definitely handle it.  It doesn't have anything inappropriate in it.  It simply features violent bullies, a mother who is slowly slipping away, and a young boy who doesn't know how to handle his world falling apart.  You know, the kind of things a child may have to face in their lives.

But there's so much more to admire here outside of its brave stance on its subject matter.  The movie is masterful in its visuals, performances and special effects.  The Monster itself is a combination of CG and a motion capture performance by Neeson, and ranks alongside Mark Rylance in The BFG as one of the more personable special effects creations to hit the screen.  Not only that, but the cinematography by Oscar Faura (The Imitation Game) does a splendid job of showing us both Conor's dreary real world, and the more fantastical dream-like images that the Monster shows us in his stories.  The film also makes wonderful use of its music score, and most importantly, silence.  There are many scenes that simply allow the emotion to come out of the expressions and motions of the actors, and it made me think how seldom we see that in film today.  Young Lewis MacDougall (he was in 2015's Pan) delivers what is easily the best child performance of the year, and one that deserves some kind of recognition.

I'm afraid that A Monster Calls will be ignored by most people because it is "sad and downbeat".  Yes, the movie can be devastating emotionally.  If you reach the end of this film with dry eyes, you may want to check your pulse.  But think of how rare it is to have a movie that moves you emotionally.  I sit through so many movies stone faced and with no reaction whatsoever that whenever a movie can draw a response out of me, I almost want to view it as an instant success.  Fortunately, this is just a truly great movie all around, one of the best of 2016.  It's more than emotional.  It's fantastical, kind of magical, and yes, deeply touching in a way few films are. 

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