Cancer movies suck. Let's go ahead and put it out there-having to deal with a movie, a piece of entertainment, that reminds us of just how debilitating and ruthless a disease cancer can be not to mention the lack of control we are able to extend over it is not exactly something we like to be reminded of in our attempts at escapism. Putting a plot in your film that concerns the disease dealing in abnormal cells can be cruel and if nothing else seem a blatant attempt to play on the real life emotions so many viewers will recognize from dealing with cancer themselves or through that of a loved one. It's a bastard of a disease and despite the fact it gets no different a representation in
A Monster Calls, the latest from director J.A. Bayona (
The Orphanage, The Impossible), it remains the focus of this sorrowful fairy tale serving as the catalyst for all that our young protagonist experiences. What is most fascinating about how
A Monster Calls deals with this potentially tired trope of a disease though, is that it never allows the disease to take center stage. This is not a story about the person suffering from cancer and it isn't a movie about how cancer will define the lives of those it will leave in its wake, but more it is about confronting the disease, dealing with it in an honest fashion, and having the gall to stare it down. What I have always found disheartening about Bayona's films is that they consistently tell powerful and affecting stories that are executed in glorious visual fashion, but never tend to stay with the viewer in any real impactful manner. Rather, Bayona is a director who calculates in order to elicit emotion as his pieces are all in their place and his aesthetic is of just as much value as the way in which he conveys his necessary themes, but no emotion from his films ever seems to grow inherently out of these carefully considered factors that are coming together to tell this particular story. Maybe it's that he considers such elements too long to the point there is no opportunity for organic emotion to grow in between, but with
A Monster Calls there are serious strides made. More than any other feature the director has led prior
A Monster Calls latches onto its themes and is able to convey with conviction this truth that is hard for our protagonist to swallow as well as the agony and adventure he must go through in order to finally admit that truth to himself.
