Rarely has a film been this proficient in forcing a viewer to enter the emotional universe of a protagonist. A Monster Calls is an adaptation of the book of the same name by Patrick Ness. It tells the story of 12-year-old Conor O’Malley (Lewis MacDougall) whose young mother (played by Felicity Jones) is suffering from terminal cancer. He’s doing his best to be the man of the house: all to avoid living with his cold and distant grandmother (Sigourney Weaver). But for a while now, he’s been having the same nightmare: the world opens up to consume his mother. While he’s trying his hardest to pull her up from the gaping earth below, their hands separate and she falls into the void while he jerks awake teary eyed, afraid and shaking.
In a fantastic move of events one night, at exactly seven minutes past midnight, the yew tree in acemetery near his house comes alive. The monster (voiced by Liam Neeson) that emerges is a mighty creature with burning hot insides, glowing red eyes and spiked branches for a spine. The monster claims that Conor has summoned him. Much to the young boy’s confusion, the monster wants to tell him three stories and not devour him.
At first we’re just as puzzled as Conor is with the monster’s stories. They’re disconnected, wholly unrelated to what’s happening with the young protagonist. But when the connection does arrive, it’s apoignant one. The monster then becomes a metaphor for the bitter truth we must all swallow, one that we’re afraid and reluctant to. When Conor’s truth is revealed to is, it’s one that’s simple albeit much like the conflict we all have within us.
Conor’s character is a beautifully complex one that director JA Bayona ( The Impossible and The Orphanage ) does justice to while bringing alive on the big screen. The 14-year-old Scottish actor who portrays the role does a fantastic job in acting out the grief-stricken frustrated protagonist. He’s perfect as the child, as the narrator describes, who’s too old to be a kid and too young to be a man. But then again, all the actors do their part. Bayona does his bit to bring out the essence of each role. He creates a vast and beautiful world for Conor to inhabit: replete with gloomy suburban neighbourhoods, sludgy hills and windy streets. Fernando Velazquez’s score is the perfect accompaniment to what’s unfurling on the screen, soaring at the right time and emotionally cajoling at other instances. The special effects team too has gone the extra mile to motion capture Neeson as the monster. His body, made up of sinuous branches with hot lava insides, never once gives away its computer generated origins.
A Monster Calls is a tear jerker in every sense of the word. Try as you might to swallow the lump that builds during the film, it just won’t go down. Conor is a kid who’s being bullied at school, pitied by his teachers, he has a mum dying of cancer, and a father that’s torn between two families. When nothing seems to be getting better, there’s a monster traumatising him with stories. It seems he just can’t cut abreak. In the midst of all this sadness, Bayona’s doing his best to stretch every emotional moment to pull intensely at those heartstrings, let alone gently tug at them.
This film is like the good weep you’d like to have once in a while to cleanse your system. After watching it, despite its very bleak nature, you still walk out renewed.
