A Monster Calls

A Monster Calls

Poster for A Monster Calls

The director of The Impossible and The Orphanage adapts the award-winning children’s fantasy novel about a bullied boy with an ill mother whose problems are put into order by a giant tree monster. Stars Academy Award nominees Sigourney Weaver, Liam Neeson, and Felicity Jones (The Theory of Everything).

86 ^%Rotten
tomatoes®
9 reviews
Directed by J.A. Bayona

2016Rating: PG, Violence & scary scenes108 minsUSA, Spain

DramaFantasy

Director:: J.A. Bayona ('The Orphanage', 'The Impossible')
Writer:: Patrick Ness
Cast:: Lewis MacDougallSigourney WeaverLiam NeesonFelicity JonesToby KebbellGeraldine ChaplinJennifer Lim

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A Monster Calls | Reviews

86%268 reviews

Rotten Tomatoes® Score

All reviews on Rotten Tomatoes

Flicks, Liam Maguren

I remember being a kid and wanting a giant creature to help me out during difficult times. I suspect it’s a common fantasy, with films like Hayao Miyazaki’s My Neighbour Totoro and Spike Jonze’s Where the Wild Things Are tapping into the active imaginations of children. But what if you’re moving from childhood to adolescence? And what if your struggles aren’t as simple as good triumphing over evil? A Monster Calls explores the darkest of grey areas experienced at a tender age, creating a cinematic masterwork in visualised empathy.

Variety

A splendidly rendered, yet oddly ill-conceived terminal-illness melodrama that feels much too dark and serious for audiences Conor's age, and an even more curious fit for grown-ups.

Time Out

There's a truly monstrous film lurking in here somewhere, but Bayona seems hell-bent on keeping it at bay.

The New Yorker

The movie delivers its meaning repeatedly to make sure that no one misses the point; its lessons, rendered even more explicitly than the ones in Conor's classroom, are missing only the chalkboard and pointer.

The New York Times

If you prefer to view dying as a natural part of life, a step in a cycle, this film will feel discordant and perhaps counterproductive. But visually it will certainly stick with you, and your children.

Sydney Morning Herald

Starts to fall apart the moment we ask just how the metaphor is meant to function.

Rolling Stone

Evocative, mysterious and shot through with bruising humour and heartbreak, A Monster Calls-with a deeply-felt performance from Felicity Jones- gets you where you live. There's real magic in it.

Los Angeles Times

"Monster" is almost too ambitious to be completely realised. But when it works, which is most of the time, its story has a power which lingers in the mind.

Hollywood Reporter

A sensitive and beautifully made lesson in the limits and power of storytelling.

FilmInk

The resolution to Conor’s inner turmoil is itself satisfying and as complex as one could hope, especially for a kids’ movie.

A Monster Calls | Trailers

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Clip ('Break the Windows')

Clip ('Break the Windows')

A Monster Calls | Release Details

A Monster Calls is available to stream in New Zealand now on Apple TV.