A Monster Calls (12A)

four stars

Dir: JA Bayona

With: Lewis MacDougall, Liam Neeson, Felicity Jones

Runtime: 108 minutes

EVERY now and then a film reviewer (well this one, anyway) comes up against a problem. You watch a movie and the critic’s head says: “Amazing. A straight-up four stars, beautifully shot, wonderfully crafted, utterly memorable, elbow your granny out the way to see this one.”

And then there’s the heart, the one that feels it should say: “Yes, this fantasy drama is all that and more, but there is also the chance that it could upset the heck out of you, or otherwise simply be unsuitable for your particular cinema-going gang.”

With that critical health-warning in mind, then, take your seats for this review of JA Bayona’s A Monster Calls.

Bayona previously directed The Impossible, set during the Indian Ocean tsunami, and the mystery thriller The Orphanage. Both dealt in their own ways with love and loss, but A Monster Calls finds the Spanish director taking his exploration of grief to a new level of intensity.

His hero this time is Conor, a young boy, living in England, who does not have his troubles to seek. Played by Lewis MacDougall, from Edinburgh, Conor suffers from nightmares, and no wonder. At school he is bullied, and when he gets home he has to watch his mother (Felicity Jones) struggle with illness. His grandmother (Sigourney Weaver) helps out as much as she can, but she and Conor can never seem to click. Home should be a refuge, but instead it is a place filled with tension and fear. And that is before the clock ticks to a certain point after midnight when a giant comes calling.

Voiced by Liam Neeson, “The Monster” is a tree. A favourite of Conor’s mother, the yew is a pretty sight during the day. After dark, however, it turns into a walking, talking, colossus with a booming voice that could scare the birds from the trees. The Monster informs Conor he will tell him three stories, whether he wants to hear them or not, and so begins an adventure that will push the boy to the edge of his wits, and more.

The screenplay by Patrick Ness is based on his award-winning children’s novel, the idea for which came from Siobhan Dowd. Young readers will know what to expect as Conor’s mother grows weaker. Bayona deals with the progression of her illness admirably and with impeccable restraint, often lightening the dramatic load with some sweetly funny, nicely judged humour. That said, this is one of those instances when watching something on screen is far more harrowing than reading about it on the page.

It helps enormously that the cast take their lead on tone from Bayona. One would expect nothing less than subtlety from actors of the calibre of Jones, Weaver, and later on from Toby Kebbell as Conor’s estranged dad (Neeson has his own dramatic furrow to plough, one which positively demands he goes over the top). Weaver is especially good as the grandmother who feels too battered by her own sorrow to take on anyone else’s.

Young MacDougall, however, is outstanding. Here is a Scots boy (donning an impeccable English accent, by the by) who does not just manage to stay in the picture, keeping up with actors several times his age, he only goes and steals it from them. There hasn’t been this heartbreaking a performance from a child actor since Guillermo del Toro directed Ivana Baquero in Pan’s Labyrinth, a film that A Monster Calls often brings to mind in the way it blends fantasy and cruel reality.

Bayona keeps faith with the book and his cast, and that belief pays off in a picture that is thrilling, tender and moving. One cannot promise you an easy-osey, sunshine-filled picture. As Conor’s dad tells him, “Most of us get messily ever after”. What you will see, however, is a film and performances that will stay with you, in a wholly good way, for a long time after.