Review

A Monster Calls

Conor O’ Malley (Lewis MacDougall) is a 12-year-old boy forced to cope with school bullying and a dying mother in the horror fantasy A Monster Calls.
Conor O’ Malley (Lewis MacDougall) is a 12-year-old boy forced to cope with school bullying and a dying mother in the horror fantasy A Monster Calls.

One of the things we try to stay away from in most of these reviews is a discussion of a given film's commercial prospects. We're not interested in how a movie might profit its makers or its stars, for we aren't writing for a trade publication but for an audience of what we imagine to be interested, alert but resolutely amateur moviegoers.

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Conor O’ Malley (Lewis MacDougall) is visited by an ambulatory yew tree (voiced by Liam Neeson) in the dark fable A Monster Calls.

Still, Mexican director J.A. Bayona's (The Orphanage, The Impossible) fairy tale/horror film A Monster Calls is interesting in that it seems too creepy to pass as a family film and too mild to impress any horror maven. It is visually impressive but is mostly a low-key charmer, the kind of movie that can't easily be sorted or marketed. It seems unlikely to be what we call a hit movie.

A Monster Calls

88 Cast: Lewis MacDougall, Sigourney Weaver, Felicity Jones, Toby Kebbell, (voice of) Liam Neeson

Director: J.A. Bayona

Rating: PG-13, for thematic content and some scary images

Running time: 1 hour, 48 minutes

That's too bad, for there's a lot to like about this well-constructed fable. As a piece of cinematic architecture, it's remarkably sound, and the performances by preteen Lewis MacDougall as Conor O'Malley, who is "too old to be a kid" yet "too young to be a man," and Felicity Jones as his cancer-stricken mother Lizzie, are well-calibrated and tender. (She gets one Oscar-begging speech, but it's delivered quite well.) Liam Neeson lends his voice to the titular monster -- an ancient yew tree (make of the homophone what you will) that lives in the courtyard of the church next door.

Conor, bullied at school and worried about eventually being remanded to the care of his icy grandmother (Sigourney Weaver, with an occasional English accent), has a recurring nightmare about that church -- and his mother -- being swallowed when the ground opens up. One night the tree uproots and makes its way to Conor's window, announcing, "I have come to get you."

The monster tree tells Conor that he will visit him again and tell him three stories. And after that, Conor must tell him one -- the truth about his nightmare. When Conor waits up (in his mother's bed) he assumes it's just another variety of nightmare.

But the monster returns (each time, it's 12:07 a.m.), insisting that Conor envision each of the stories he relates. This allows for some stylish effects that incorporate elements of Conor's remarkably developed drawing and watercolor style. Each of the stories starts off in typical fairy tale style -- full of orphans and princes and witches -- but each invariably takes a subversive turn. And the monster's morals are not of the usual kind: "Many things that are true feel like a cheat. Kingdoms get the princes they deserve. Sometimes farmers' daughters die for no reason. And sometimes witches merit saving."

There's not always a good guy in the story, the monster continues.

While Conor's waking life gets a little heavy-handed -- one of his teachers pleads for empathy with bullies, suggesting that maybe they're acting out as a bid for attention; later she takes pains to remind us there are "two sides to every story" -- the arrival of his father (Toby Kebbell) reinforces the theme. Dad left Mom to start a new family in America, but he still cares for her and for Conor. Sometimes, Dad explains, people are simply too young, they have dreams, and sometimes "love isn't enough, it doesn't carry you through" and "most of us just get messily ever after."

This is a graceful and restrained film occasionally disrupted by jarring and at times overwrought shifts in tone (which, it could be argued, might reflect the mindset of the damaged 'tween protagonist). It's sentimental but informed by a surprisingly adult sensibility: There is no magic that can save us, there is sometimes catharsis in destruction, sometimes the guilty go unpunished.

Based on a 2011 book by Patrick Ness (who also wrote the screenplay), A Monster Calls is an odd movie but not a dull one, and seems destined to find a small and devoted following. Were there justice in the world it might be a blockbuster, but that would seem to undermine the film's thesis. We get the hit movies we deserve.

MovieStyle on 01/06/2017

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