A Monster Calls

Of all the different types of movies that inspire an emotional reaction, none is more interesting to consider than the drama that makes you cry. Crying in a movie is a very impressionable, oftentimes harrowing, experience: eyes stinging as tears well up and leak out, mouth aching and quivering as you work it to fight back the tears, and chest getting sore from hard-hitting sobs or the struggle to not let them out in public. Going through this awful experience will definitely make you remember that movie. With an idea of the experience in mind, let’s talk about A Monster Calls. 

Based on the original idea by Susan Dowd and written by Patrick Ness, the film tells the story of a boy named Conor (Lewis MacDougall) struggling to find peace in both the schoolyard and at home. Tormented by bullies at school and a terrifying nightmare at home, Conor’s stress reaches breaking point as his mother’s health begins to deteriorate after a session of medication and the time to face some hard truths draws near. As though hearing his internal call for help, a twisted tree monster comes to visit Conor with the promise of telling him three stories if he’ll tell it his nightmare afterwards. At first the tales seem to make no sense, but as things spiral out of control in Conor’s life, they become the only outlet for his fear and grief and the monster, the help he needs to get through what’s to come. 

Films such as Billy Elliot and Finding Neverland have dealt with kids in that difficult stage between childhood and manhood having to cope with something that most adults can’t even cope with. It’s an incredibly complex stage of biological development to depict and film often has to heighten it by throwing numerous logs on the emotional fire. This is definitely the case with this film and whilst it’s all done relatively well with the metaphor of the monster making the complexities of humanity a little more accessible to a wider audience, it’s not 100% airtight. 

Like the monster’s tales, there are three stories that the film chronicles: Conor’s struggle to cope with his mother’s illness, his encounters with schoolyard bullies, and his flaky relationships with his father and grandmother. The film puts more emphasis on the mother-son story, which is important, but somehow manages to make the other stories clumsy and not as well-handled. The bullying story doesn’t really get any satisfactory payoff and the father just goes around in a circle. This is a shame because both stories are meant to represent the reality of the situation and impress upon the protagonist how life is not split into good and evil, happily ever after and not, and whilst the point does still come across in forced dialogue and inactive authoritative characters, the stories are left a little up in the air. 

But aside from one or two glitches in the narrative side of things, the film is a visual treat. The monster himself is both frightening and gorgeous and the watercolour animation used to depict the stories he tells is simply mesmerising. 

And then we have the performances. Lewis MacDougall, whilst a tad dramatically brooding, is a wonderful lead and delivers such an engaging and moving performance that perfectly displays the complexities of his character’s struggles. He’s kind of amazing. 

It’s a sad movie to be sure, but A Monster Calls is also very beautiful and tells a lot of hard truths about reality. Pixar made feelings accessible to kids with Inside Out and The Babadook opted for the monster metaphor for grief; this movie sits somewhere comfortably in the middle, triggering strong emotional reactions that are sure to make us remember it. 

Starring: Lewis MacDougall, Sigourney Weaver, Felicity Jones, Toby Kebbell, and Liam Neeson 

Year: 2017 

Rating: PG