A Monster Calls
2016 · Directed by J. A. Bayona
Original language: English
- fantasy
- adventure
- family
The story
12-year-old Conor encounters an ancient tree monster who proceeds to help him cope with his mother's terminal illness and being bullied in school.
What it’s like
Muted, rain-washed greens and greys, with the warm ochre of a bedside lamp cutting through hospital-white corridors and cramped bedroom dark. Bayona frames his people in still, carefully composed shots, often holding on a child's face while the world goes soft and out of focus around him, and the animated sequences of the tree monster arrive as loose, painterly watercolour that bleeds into the live-action frame. The score is sparse and string-led, swelling only at the edges of grief, and the silences between lines of dialogue carry real weight. The mood is tender melancholy with a fairytale undertow, a lonely boy slowly learning to speak the truth he has been hiding. Intensity is moderate: a few nightmare sequences with sudden fear and a dark, unsettling creature, some scenes of schoolyard cruelty, and an emotionally harrowing portrayal of a mother's decline, but no gore and little explicit violence. It suits a quiet evening alone or a tissue-ready night in, and it is for viewers who want an emotionally honest story about loss, told with gentle beauty rather than spectacle.
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