A Monster Calls
(2016)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).
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Directed by J.A. Bayona
Starring Lewis MacDougall, Sigourney Weaver, Liam Neeson, Felicity Jones, Toby Kebbell, Geraldine Chaplin, Jennifer Lim
Written by Patrick Ness (based on his own novel)
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DVD or Blu-Ray)
On Demand, DVD & Blu-Ray
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Flicks Review
BY Liam Maguren Flicks Writer
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.... More
The cinematography alone gives plenty for the eyes to devour on the big screen; a simple fade from pencil to sharpener looks soothing and hypnotic. The visual work on The Monster also impresses, effortlessly moving between realism and caricature, as do the tales he tells, separate sequences gorgeously animated in 2D-ish watercolour. Even the sound design, especially the snapping and cracking of gigantic roots, demand cinema speakers.
At the heart of the performances is Lewis MacDougall, an incredible young actor whose portrayal of the tragedy-struck Conor will tear through almost anyone. Oscar nominee Felicity Jones is as great as she’s ever been as Conor’s mother, aided by some ultra-convincing makeup when her health deteriorates. Of course, Liam Neeson’s voice is as suited to The Monster as Morgan Freeman’s is to wildlife documentaries.
Filling out the side-roles nicely are Sigourney Weaver as Conor’s grandmother and Toby Kebbell as his distant father. They seem like irritating deadbeats at first until the film moulds them into genuine, grounded characters.
With A Monster Calls, director JA Bayona has made a painful transition as comforting as possible. By adding pins to the cushion of traditional children’s fantasy fable, the story prepares the innocent for the daggers of the real world. It is, in some way, the last fairy tale a child needs.Hide
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A Monster Calls
BY cinemusefilm superstar
There are two closely interwoven storylines at play: one... More is a magical fantasy, the other a tragic drama. Thirteen-year old Conor (Lewis MacDougall) is withdrawn and bullied at school as he experiences raging frustration over his mother’s (Felicity Jones) worsening illness. Each time the hospital unsuccessfully tries a new treatment his hopes are dashed. He has fits of destruction and is desperate to understand what the grown-ups are keeping from him. He hates living with his strict grandmother (Sigourney Weaver) and his remarried father (Toby Kebbell) leaves him feeling even more abandoned. Nothing can break Conor’s cycle of despair and time is running out. Drawing deep from his young sub-conscious memory, he reconstructs a monster story told long ago by his mother, one that empowers his desperate search for a happy ending. Her long-forgotten painting of a magic yew tree like the one outside his bedroom becomes his psychological crutch and he fantasises it as a powerful magical sage that can cure her illness. The tree comes to life with destructive menace to others but kindness towards Conor as it tries to teach acceptance of things that cannot be changed.
The brilliance of this film lies in the way that story unfolds not just from Conor’s point of view but from deep inside his turbulent mind. Conventional cinematography and narrative structures position us where the director wants us, but this film goes much further. Through the sincerity and emotive power of the amazing young Lewis MacDougall, we viscerally feel what he is feeling. While we see magical happenings on screen, the role of monster and magic in this narrative is entirely cathartic. Some viewers may need a degree of forgiveness for the unimaginative CGI tree monster and its magical doings. The sinewy hyper-masculine beast with flashing lights from every crevice might startle ten-year olds but it is a tame cliché for older viewers. Some of its dialogue sounds preachy like “heroes don’t always win” and its make-believe destructiveness can be repetitive. But these are minor distractions compared to the emotional punch this film can deliver.
Conversations about death and grief are difficult at any age. From the outset, the film’s narrator explains that Conor is somewhere between boy and man. By the end of his sad journey, he has grown emotionally and learnt about letting go. Much more than just entertainment, this sensitive coming of age tale is an honest conversation about some of the most complex feelings a human can ever experience.Hide
BY adamatdramatrain superstar
Sigourney Weaver, Felicity Jones, Toby Kebbell, Liam Neeson (voicing the titular monster), and especially young Lewis MacDougall (as Conor, a kid with a... More terminally ill mother, and a highly active imagination) are all superb in their roles.
Opinion’s subjective, but for me at least, this was pretty underwhelming and unambitious storytelling. Patrick Ness, author of the novel on which it’s based, penned the screenplay, so perhaps the issue’s one of being too close to the book, rather than wholly embracing the visual storytelling of cinema.
Still, those less cynical and hard-hearted will appreciate its undoubted fairy tale warmth, but this monster gets a “meh” from me.Hide
The Press Reviews
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. Full Review
"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. Full Review
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. Full Review
There's a truly monstrous film lurking in here somewhere, but Bayona seems hell-bent on keeping it at bay. Full Review
A sensitive and beautifully made lesson in the limits and power of storytelling. Full Review
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. Full Review
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. Full Review
Starts to fall apart the moment we ask just how the metaphor is meant to function. Full Review
The resolution to Conor’s inner turmoil is itself satisfying and as complex as one could hope, especially for a kids’ movie. Full Review
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