Delayed Reaction: A Monster Calls

The Pitch: The BFG only it's going to make you cry a lot.

A giant tree monster visit a boy and helps him cope with his mother dying of a terminal illness.

Director J.A. Bayona has a way with making films that stick with me. Both The Orphanage and The Impossible have elements that stuck with me long after I forgot about the parts of the film I didn't care for. A Monster Calls makes it 3/3.

This film is a terrific study of grief. It gets so many small things right. The way that Conor knows what's going on even though all the adults try to shield him from the harsh truths of his mother's (Felicity Jones') condition. The way that any time Conor acts out, the adults don't punish him because "What's the point?". The way his grandmother (Sigourney Weaver) reacts when he destroys the room (or his father's reaction: "I have to say, this is amazingly thorough"). It all feels right.

Honestly, where the film lost me is with its selling point: the monster. That was a spectacle that didn't do it for me. Maybe I was already burned out by Disney covering facets of it with The BFG and Pete's Dragon, but there was no wonder to this monster. The first three stories it told weren't that enlightening. The fourth story was. The moment went Conor admits "I want it to be over" hit me like a brick. Then, the monster ruins it by spelling out all the subtext of the movie, diluting the impact. The monster is vital to make the story bearable, but the execution of it wasn't imaginative enough. It felt like Bayona wanted to tell the grief story and was required to include the monster.

The grief stuff more than makes up for that though. The last 10-15 minutes - my room got pretty dusty. And, even though I knew from the beginning that it would happen, when it's revealed that the mom sees the monster too, it's hard not to feel something...excuse me. I need to go hug my mom now.

Verdict (?): Weakly Recommend