• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • Film
  • DVD
  • Editorial
  • About ScreenFish

ScreenFish

where faith and film are intertwined

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Twitter
  • Home
  • Reviews
  • Interviews
  • News
  • OtherFish
  • Podcast
  • Give
You are here: Home / DVD / A Monster Calls: Wrestling with Grief

A Monster Calls: Wrestling with Grief

April 11, 2017 by Jacob Sahms Leave a Comment

Based on Patrick Ness’ novel of the same name, and adapted by a Siobhan Dowd story idea, A Monster Calls is a live-action/animated/CGI masterpiece that shares the life and internal struggle of a tween named Conor O’Malley (Lewis MacDougall). Wrestling with his mother’s (Felicity Jones) battle with a terminal illness, his overbearing grandmother (Sigourney Weaver), his absentee father (Toby Kebbell), and a schoolyard bully (James Melville).

J.A. Bayona (The Impossible, The Orphanage) proves a capable director of a film that balances real-world worries with fantastic episodes. To understand the film, the audience will first grapple with the way that a tree/monster comes to visit Conor at 12:07 a.m. and promises to tell him three stories – forcing Conor to prepare to tell him a fourth story.

The three stories the Monster tells Conor are strange, angry, violent – true to life  – stories of how people’s expectations and inner feelings often come to life. For instance, the first involves a king who is mostly good whose second wife is a witch with a son who is … oh, I can’t tell you! But the way that these stories are translated, via animation and motion capture, are fantastic, balancing the real-world Conor and the Liam Neeson-animated/voiced Monster. Move over, Taken, this might be my favorite Neeson work yet!

While the film is wildly entertaining (and terrifying at times), it’s not a ‘light watch.’ More like Pan’s Labyrinth than anything else that comes to mind, I found myself wondering if the story needed words. If cinema is words made pictures that move, then A Monster Calls may be perfection. It blends the grace and naivete of a child with the wisdom of an aged one, wrapped around grief, loss, anger, hope, and love.

Special features include deleted scenes, “The Making of A Monster Calls,” and the ‘making of’ the tales. 

Share it!

  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window)
  • Click to print (Opens in new window)

Related

Filed Under: DVD, Featured, Film, Reviews

About Jacob Sahms

Jacob serves as a United Methodist pastor in Virginia, where he spends his downtime in a theater or playing sports

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Primary Sidebar

THE SF NEWS

Get a special look, just for you.

sf podcast

Hot Off the Press

  • The Mauritanian: How Do You Know What’s True?
  • The Last Vermeer: What Would You Do For the Truth?
  • Crisis – Trying to Take on Opioids
  • The Croods: A New Age – Stone Age Meets the Modern Age
  • Giveaway! THE CROODS: A NEW AGE on Blu-Ray!
Find tickets and showtimes on Fandango.

where faith and film are intertwined

film and television carry stories which remind us of the stories God has woven since the beginning of time. come with us on a journey to see where faith and film are intertwined.

Footer

ScreenFish Articles

The Mauritanian: How Do You Know What’s True?

The Last Vermeer: What Would You Do For the Truth?

  • About ScreenFish
  • Privacy Policy

© 2021 · ScreenFish.net · Built by Aaron Lee

loading Cancel
Post was not sent - check your email addresses!
Email check failed, please try again
Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email.