One of my favourite quotes of all time comes from the classic film 10 Things I Hate About You. That quote is "I know you can be overwhelmed, and you can be underwhelmed, but can you ever just be whelmed
The story is a very imaginative one, and very cleverly combines fairy-tale elements with some of the darker aspects of real life. We follow Conor O'Malley (Lewis MacDougall), whose mother (Felicity Jones) is suffering from cancer, and her condition grows worse as more time passes. Haunted by nightmares, Conor is visited by an enormous Monster (Liam Neeson), who helps the boy cope with his mother's illness and find the truth of his feelings. The premise is very simple in this way; it's just about Conor coming to terms with reality, despite it being a very difficult thing to deal with. Escaping into fantasy makes sense to him, given his artistic talent and imagination. The film's greatest achievement is Conor's character being as compelling as he is; MacDougall manages to create a fully three-dimensional child, which is often difficult to achieve. It's hard to find a child actor who can actually portray the dramatic highs and lows that Conor has to, and MacDougall gave a truly incredible performance.
The film is, at its core, a character study of Conor. The supporting cast exist mainly to create conflict around him, with all of it building towards his final acceptance of the truth about his mother. The relationships that he has with his family and the other people around him all make sense, and inform a different, necessary part of who Conor is. The connection that he shares with his mother is the most emotionally resonant, and it truly is heartbreaking to see her deteriorate more and more, even as Conor's hope for a cure grows. Conor's father (Toby Kebbel) doesn't have a large part to play due to being so distant, but the love he has for his son is still very obvious, and their troubled relationship never dramatized to a ridiculous extent. Conor's grandmother was key to how his feelings were being repressed in the midst of his whole world changing, although why they chose to cast Sigourney Weaver instead of a British woman is a strange choice. Still, the film could have very easily painted his grandmother as the bad guy, but it thankfully never does. The only character who doesn't quite work is the bully, who always acts right on the line between sexual predator and confused sociopath. One of my least favourite tropes is the bully character who's just a bully, and that's all this character is.
Despite it never missing any steps or essential beats, I never found myself able to fully connect with Conor's emotional journey. Maybe it's because I've never experienced a loss quite like the one presented in this movie, and I'm one hundred percent sure that this movie is going to hit hard for people. There's certainly a place in the world for this movie as an emotional and artistic achievement, but it never reached the heights I wanted it to. The film spells out its ending almost immediately, and the revelation of the "final truth" doesn't really have the punch that it needs. The moment of acceptance is so heavily telegraphed that the answer to Conor's fear never feels like a reveal. Then again, I'm not sure if it's not really supposed to be. The film is less about the journey and more about the destination in that way, but it never captured me emotionally the way it so desperately wanted to. The movie isn't a failure because I didn't cry, but because sentimentality and loss are so essential to the film, those elements have to really work. But A Monster Calls never really did.
Despite the emotional moments no hitting quite so high, the film really excels in the more imaginative, stylistic sequences. To help Conor understand and process his feelings, The Monster tells him a series of stories, which are artfully brought to life with animation. The different sequences have slightly different styles, mainly emulating watercoulour paintings, and they all look spectacular. These animated shorts are the highlights of the movie, but could also just exist on their own as individual stories. Thematically, these sequences explain what's happening to Conor - and are the main reason for his character development - but the real messages of them felt almost tangential to the rest of the film. Conor's nightmare is portrayed very intensely, although the real payoff of it is shown at the very beginning, so there's nowhere for the film to go in terms of understanding Conor. There should have been more sequences that actually involved Conor, instead of stories being told around him.
The Monster itself is a very impressive effect, and Liam Neeson's low, grumbling voice fit the ancient, tree-like design perfectly. The best sequences outside of the animated stories involve Conor and The Monster interacting, which reinforce Conor's realistic characterization as well as JA Bayona's mastery at combining practical and digital effects. The Monster is a true achievement, but its relationship with Conor never felt genuine. It was interesting to watch them interact, but it didn't feel like there was a real connection between them. The different stories all existed to tie together at the end, but the movie ends on such a confusing note that I wasn't sure what to think. It made the point of The Monster really unclear, as well as what exactly it's supposed to represent. Given that Liam Neeson sort of exists as more than just a voice in the world of the film, I'm not really sure if his role is more spiritual or purely imaginary. Plus, if you didn't know that Neeson voiced The Monster, then what I think the ending implies will be lost on you.
The film feels unfocused a lot of the time; it jumps around between a series of scenes that stand alone well, but some of them don't flow together into the main story as much as they should. Nothing felt unnecessary, but the different stories tackled so many different aspects of Conor's personality that it felt like we didn't need to see some. It also felt like the resolution of certain stories was just added on, because I don't remember a lot of them being set up in the first place. Here's a metaphor: if the story of the film is like a river, then there are several small streams that break off from the main body of water. It's all definitely part of the same body, but when it all comes back together, the river there's a boat sitting there. We'd seen this boat a couple of times when we were going down the river, but I figured it was more of a little reference. But suddenly, the whole movie has been about this boat. This isn't to say that a river has to have a satisfying resolution, but a film does. It's a shame, because the film has a really strong scene that would function as a far superior ending, and then the real ending feels almost tacked-on, like an afterthought to make things more ambiguous. It's treated as a big reveal that's supposed to explain everything, but since it's unclear what's being revealed, it only raises more questions. The last thing I should have felt at the end of this movie was confused.
Despite A Monster Calls being a consistently engaging and emotionally heartfelt film, it never reached the heights I hoped for. It was certainly good, and a very unique expression of loss and emotional turmoil. Its greatest crime is not being absolutely heartbreaking, but that's just my subjective view. I saw this film with people who were crying at the end, but it never struck the right chord with me. The film is visually stunning, and I have no doubt that it will hold a very special place in the hearts of some. I wanted to love this movie, and I wanted to be emotionally carried away, but I just wasn't. It's still a very enjoyable experience, and shows that an effects-heavy film doesn't lose any inherent sense of emotional weight in its story. The acting is great, the effects are flawless, and the directing has a distinct, artistically smooth vision throughout. But all of these things made it just good, and not great.
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