'A Monster Calls (2017)' is the kind of 'fantasy as allegory' that's so often made all the less ambiguous, one way or the other, precisely because of its format. Film isn't quite able to achieve the kind of unspoken uncertainty that novels often inherently carry, considering the all-encompassing perspective of written first-person narratives, but not every story is meant to work both literally and figuratively - though many often do and I can't speak to the intentions of the source-material (which I haven't read). My point is that some material perhaps has more impact if it makes itself as definitive as possible. Such is the case with this feature, which never really has any pretences about its more outlandish elements and always frames them as the coping mechanisms of a child - though the occasionally more tangible moment does break this illusion somewhat. While the stranger elements perhaps don't work as well as they would have in a piece totally told from the perspective of our unreliable narrator of a protagonist, the film comes together to tell a tale as old as time in a distinct way that actually allows it to be widely accessible and incredibly emotionally resonant, to boot. 7/10.
Review of A Monster Calls
