"A Monster Calls" is a Spanish/American/British co-production from 2016 that results in an English-language movie and boy has this one been successful with the awards circuits. It runs for 105 minutes approximately and was directed by J.A. Bayona, thus the Spain reference. The screenplay writer is Patrick Ness and he is also the one who came up with the original novel here. Looking at the awards, the IMDb rating and the RT reception, you can certainly say that he did a good job overall. Lead actor Lewis MacDougall is probably not too famous (yet?), but Weaver, Jones and Neeson (all Oscar nominees) are of course household names by now. And they are all giving strong performances too. Weaver and Jones add a lot of heart to the story while Neeson gives one of the more memorable voice acting performance in recent history.
This is the story of a teenager who not only has to deal with bullying at school, but also needs to come to terms with his mother's mortality. And he finds a strong companion not necessarily in easing his pain, but in directing it properly. The consequence is also that the moments when he says he wants it to be over and when they are at the mother's bed are really touching and got my eyes wet. Sadly, these moments alone are not enough to really appreciate everything before that. There are always minor flaws in terms of storytelling, nothing too serious, but enough to make a difference for the negative side in terms of the quantity. For example the third story was really really weak compared to stories one and especially two. The protagonist standing up to the bullies added nothing to the film in my opinion. And actually it also did not feel too authentic. And there are other flaws too, like the part with the dad is not really a worthy addition because it does not add anything in terms of character development other than perhaps showing the protagonist is far from alone, but Weaver (and Jones) provide that to a sufficient degree too.
Nonetheless, the weaknesses in storytelling are somewhat made up by the strengths in performances, even if I did not like the lead actor as much as some of the others I guess. This is certainly one of the most depressing 2016/2017 films, probably not one of the best, but still fairly good. It could have needed some more cutting though, maybe should have stayed at 90-95 minutes max and it would have been a really strong film if they had left out the right (i.e. wrong) scenes. I still recommend it though, just not that enthusiastically.
This is the story of a teenager who not only has to deal with bullying at school, but also needs to come to terms with his mother's mortality. And he finds a strong companion not necessarily in easing his pain, but in directing it properly. The consequence is also that the moments when he says he wants it to be over and when they are at the mother's bed are really touching and got my eyes wet. Sadly, these moments alone are not enough to really appreciate everything before that. There are always minor flaws in terms of storytelling, nothing too serious, but enough to make a difference for the negative side in terms of the quantity. For example the third story was really really weak compared to stories one and especially two. The protagonist standing up to the bullies added nothing to the film in my opinion. And actually it also did not feel too authentic. And there are other flaws too, like the part with the dad is not really a worthy addition because it does not add anything in terms of character development other than perhaps showing the protagonist is far from alone, but Weaver (and Jones) provide that to a sufficient degree too.
Nonetheless, the weaknesses in storytelling are somewhat made up by the strengths in performances, even if I did not like the lead actor as much as some of the others I guess. This is certainly one of the most depressing 2016/2017 films, probably not one of the best, but still fairly good. It could have needed some more cutting though, maybe should have stayed at 90-95 minutes max and it would have been a really strong film if they had left out the right (i.e. wrong) scenes. I still recommend it though, just not that enthusiastically.