‘A Monster Calls’: Way too much storytelling
Published 1:30 am Friday, January 6, 2017
Monster movies, fairy tales, children’s books — one thing these things have in common is the way they deliver life lessons, or new ways of thinking, that can really get to a kid’s brain.
Not that the child viewer or reader is aware of metaphor, or has even heard the word. The meaning still comes through.
There are great movies that fall into this category. There is, however, a subset within this form that always makes me squirm a little.
I’m sorry to report that “A Monster Calls” falls into this subset. These are films that don’t just tell stories that contain valuable life lessons, they have to repeatedly spell out to us that they are employing the wonder of storytelling to convey valuable life lessons.
Here’s how this one goes down. A sad tyke, Conor (Lewis MacDougall) is losing his mother (Felicity Jones, from “Rogue One”) to cancer. The 12-year-old also gets beaten up repeatedly at school, and must endure the businesslike care of his bossy grandmother (Sigourney Weaver, in a good pro turn).
Then a monster comes calling. In the movie’s best sequence, a crazy old tree that looms over the church in Conor’s neighborhood comes to full, crackling life.
When the tree rouses itself — fully realized by digital effects — it speaks with the voice of Liam Neeson. So, you know, Conor listens.
The monster will tell three stories (told in clever animation), which will help Conor deal with his life problems.
Director J.A. Bayona (“The Orphanage”) and screenwriter-novelist Patrick Ness are insistent on about how stories can be healing, and how we tell ourselves comforting lies to keep going.
These ideas are potentially rich, but the problem is that the film keeps informing us about them, rather than allowing them to emerge from the monster’s tales. And the monster’s tales aren’t very engaging in their own right.
“A Monster Calls” is so somber about its serious goals that it doesn’t get a rhythm going. It’s like watching “The Babadook” on tranquilizers.
Throughout the whole tiresome business of Tree-Liam Neeson telling the stories, I could think of only one wish. Stop telling us about how wondrous the magic of storytelling is. Tell us a story.
“A Monster Calls” (2 stars)
A sad kid is visited by a lifelike monster-tree (voiced by Liam Neeson), which laboriously tells the child three stories, because stories can heal — as we are too often reminded. This somber movie would be better if it just got along with telling us the tales, instead of insisting on the therapeutic value of storytelling.
Rating: PG-13, for violence, subject matter
Showing: Alderwood, Everett Stadium, Galaxy Monroe, Marysville, Pacific Place, Sundance Cinemas, Thornton Place Stadium, Cascade Mall
