What The Reviews Have To Say About 'A Monster Calls'
Felicity Jones, Sigourney Weaver and Liam Neeson all star alongside young actor Lewis MacDougall in A Monster Calls, an adaptation of Patrick Ness's emotionally-weighty children's novel about a troubled child who's visited by a talking yew tree (Neeson).
J.A. Bayona (The Impossible, The Orphanage) directs, and Ness wrote the screenplay. Can an effects-laden film land without muddying its messages about life and death? Here's what the reviews have to say:
This Is No Lighthearted Fantasy Romp
After winning hearts as Jyn Erso in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, Felicity Jones is now breaking them in A Monster Calls. The actress gives a dazzling, deeply-felt performance as a cancer-stricken mother unable to help her 12-year-old son Conor (an outstanding Lewis MacDougall) adjust to losing her.
Amid all the tumult, an enormous, spooky tree in the graveyard outside Conor's window comes to volatile, molten life, cryptically rambling about how it intends to swap some stories with him. (Neeson's creature might make genre fans flash back to Tolkien and "The Two Towers," but Groot spliced with Optimus Prime and Jacob Marley also works.)
The Visuals For The Monster And Its Tales Pull You In
You watch "A Monster Calls" wondering a bit about who its audience might be; though its tone of gentle sadness seems aimed at children (as was the book), it's perhaps too frightening for young ones. But older audiences braced for tragedy may be drawn to its imaginative visuals — the stories told by the monster are rendered in delicate, painterly animation — and to the achingly vulnerable, growing-up-too-fast boy at its center.
Bayona has wisely chosen to use practical effects whenever possible, mandating that full-scale animatronic versions of the monster's head and shoulders, arms, hands and feet be created out of foam.
[LA Times]
It Doesn't Shy From The Grim And Difficult
The Monster's lavish fantasy world serves as a stark contrast to Conor's real life, and when he's not by his mother's side, he faces off against schoolyard bullies, retreats into his art, and struggles to connect with his cold, distant grandmother (Sigourney Weaver, who breathes life into an otherwise stock character).
[EW]
Meanwhile, the morals of the monster's stories aren't easy for a kid to parse. Aesop's fables they are not. In one tale, a witch turns out to be harmless, but she's exiled anyway. An evil prince becomes a king in another, enjoying a long, successful reign. Sometimes bad things happen to good people, the boy realizes. And sometimes unlikable people do good.
You Might Weep Without Finding It 'Deep'
The film by director J.A. Bayona (The Impossible) is psychologically astute and emotionally rich, but it makes everything too clear and doesn't allow for any of the real mysteries of life and death to shine through.
[Nerdist]
Ultimately, audiences' reception to A Monster Calls will vary depending upon their capacity for cinematic manipulation. From the music (or lack thereof) to the haunting visuals to the meticulously framed shots of Jones' and MacDougall's expressive faces, everything here seems destined to wrench as many tears from viewers' eyes as possible.
But Kids Movies Rarely Get Praise Like This (Or Go PG-13)
Bayona remains a magnificent visual stylist, on track to be in the same league as Steven Spielberg and Guillermo Del Toro some day. And his actors all strike a remarkable balance between playing the surface emotions of a scene and hinting at what lies beneath. The craft of the film is undeniable.
[AV Club]
It's a catharsis painted with bold, noisy imagery, one that makes death an overwhelming tsunami. If you prefer to view dying as a natural part of life, a step in a cycle, this film will feel discordant and perhaps counterproductive. But visually it will certainly stick with you, and your children.
TL;DR
Considering how easily the material could turn maudlin, it's especially notable that Bayona avoids overstatement. The monster may or may not be a metaphor; either way, it leaves a strong impression.