Review: A Monster Calls

Blending genres can be a tricky thing, even trickier when the film is aimed at families. After tackling horror and disaster films with The Orphanage and The Impossible, director J.A. Bayona delves into the fantasy genre. In translating Patrick Ness' book, who wrote the adaptation to screen, A Monster Calls is a unique, emotional film for all ages.

Newcomer Lewis MacDougall plays Conor, a boy whose mother (Felicity Jones) has cancer and is dying. To make matters worse, his father (Toby Kebbell) is unwilling to take Conor when his mom passes on. This means Conor is to be left with his stern grandmother (a wonderful Sigourney Weaver). Life is not looking up for Conor when the film begins. He is also bullied at school and finds little comfort from anyone in his life.

Thus it is here that a giant tree monster voiced by Liam Neeson enters Conor's life and begins to tell him stories that illustrate his predicaments. Each story is told in stunning animation in the style of watercolor paintings. The visual maturity on display in A Monster Calls is one of the film's biggest delights.

To the credit of Ness and his story, no punches are pulled in the depiction of pain and sadness here. Conor and the audience go through several emotions as each story unfolds and illuminates the guilt or anger or despair of the situation. This emotional heft may make it difficult for the film to find an audience. The PG-13 rating is appropriate due to the heavy emotions in the film but this is a work meant for slightly younger audiences as well as parents. Films like Henry Selick's Coraline or even Pete Docter's Inside Out come to mind that stratal a similar line between darkness and light.

A Monster Calls is an effecting and beautifully made film. Bayona knows how to wring a story of all of its emotions and he is confident enough of a storyteller to allow those emotions to blend. The film is a hard one to pin down in terms of tone and style but that is exactly why I kept thinking about it long after the credits rolled. MacDougall is good enough here to become a young star. His performance centers the film. Family movies as complex and respectful to hard emotions don't come along to often. Make sure you see this one.

4/5