A Monster Calls (film)


A Monster Calls is a 2016 dark fantasy film directed by J. A. Bayona and written by Patrick Ness, based on his 2011 novel of the same name, which in turn was based on an original idea by Siobhan Dowd. The film stars Sigourney Weaver, Felicity Jones, Toby Kebbell, Lewis MacDougall, and Liam Neeson, and tells the story of Conor, a child whose mother is terminally ill; one night, he is visited by a monster in the form of a giant anthropomorphic yew tree, who states that he will come back and tell Conor three stories. The film is an international co-production between Spain, United Kingdom and the United States.
A Monster Calls premiered at the 2016 Toronto International Film Festival on 10 September 2016. It was then released in Spain on 7 October 2016, and in the United Kingdom on 1 January 2017. In the United States, the film began a limited release on 23 December 2016, followed by a wide release on 6 January 2017. It received positive reviews, being praised for its themes, directing, performances and visual effects, but underperformed at the box office, grossing $47 million worldwide on a budget of $43 million.

Plot

13-year-old Conor O'Malley holds a close bond with his seriously ill mother, and maintains the household during her regular chemotherapy treatments at the hospital. Conor's grandmother often visits, and she suggests that Conor live with her in the event of his mother's death. Conor is reluctant to take up this offer due to her cold personality. At school, Conor is ridiculed as a daydreamer and is regularly tormented and bullied by his classmate Harry. Conor is also plagued by a nightmare in which the old church near his house collapses and falls into a hole, where someone else is in danger of plummeting and he tries to hold onto them. Conor vents his emotions via drawing, a talent he inherited from his mother. At the end of the tale, we find that his mother had exactly the same experience as Conor with a monster. This is how he meets the Monster: One night, exactly seven minutes past midnight, he awakes from his nightmare to see the large yew tree next to the church transform into a gnarled monster that approaches Conor's home and speaks to him. The Monster says that it will tell Conor three stories during their next meetings, after which Conor must tell the Monster a fourth tale in return.
In the Monster's first story, a prince escapes from his stepmother, the supposedly-evil elderly queen, with his bride, but then kills his sleeping bride under a yew tree and makes the queen into a scapegoat so that his people can drive the queen away and make him king. As the condition of Conor's mother worsens, Conor moves in with his grandmother. Conor's father, who lives in Los Angeles with a new family, visits Conor and invites him to visit his stepfamily on Christmas, which gives Conor hope that he might live with him permanently. After Conor angrily damages his grandmother's valuable clock, the Monster appears and tells his second story: a hard-hearted parson forbids an apothecary from extracting medicine from an old yew tree, only to rescind this measure when his own children become ill. However, the apothecary cannot help him, and the Monster begins to destroy the parson's house as punishment. Conor enthusiastically joins in on the destruction, but comes to find that he has decimated his grandmother's living room. His grandmother, while bitter, does not punish Conor.
Conor's mother's condition declines further, and her doctors turn to a final treatment involving yew wood. Conor learns of this and implores the Monster to heal his mother, only for the Monster to dismiss the matter as outside of his responsibility. At school, Harry proclaims to Conor that he will no longer bother Conor because he "no longer sees ". The Monster appears and tells a story of an invisible man who did not want to be so. With the Monster's support, Conor attacks Harry and hospitalizes him. To Conor's astonishment, the headmistress refrains from punishing Conor as she comprehends Conor's current situation. When it becomes clear that his mother will die, Conor runs to the yew tree, where the Monster forces him to relive his nightmare, in which his mother dangles for her life. Conor finally admits that he had long suspected that his mother would not survive her illness and secretly hoped that she would die soon, which fills him with guilt. The Monster tells him that he did not truly want his mother to die, but simply to end his own suffering. Conor's grandmother finds him asleep under the yew tree and drives him to the hospital, during which Conor reconciles with her. At the hospital, Conor embraces his mother one last time and as she is passing she glances at the Monster, as if she was acknowledging its existence. She dies at seven minutes past midnight. Conor returns to his grandmother's house, where his mother's old room is refurbished for him. In the room, he finds his mother's old art book, which depicts the stories that were told to him by the Monster, and a drawing of his mother as a child with the Monster.

Cast

Focus Features bought the rights to the book in March 2014. Patrick Ness, the book's author, served as the film's screenwriter, with J. A. Bayona hired as director. On 23 April 2014, Felicity Jones joined the film to play the boy's mother. On 8 May, Liam Neeson was cast to voice the Monster, and on 18 August, Sigourney Weaver joined to play the boy's grandmother. On August 19, Toby Kebbell was also cast in the film. On 3 September, author Ness tweeted that Lewis MacDougall had been set for one of the lead roles as the boy in the film. On 30 September, Geraldine Chaplin joined the cast.

Filming

began on 30 September 2014, in Spain and Britain. On 9 October, the filming began on location in Preston, Lancashire, Rivington Pike, Blackpool Pleasure Beach and Marsden, West Yorkshire
Liam Neeson, who voices the titular tree creature, was not on set throughout the shooting process, and completed his motion-capture performance during a two-week period beforehand, with MacDougall in the room. Tom Holland worked on set as The Monster with Neeson absent.

Release

Originally scheduled for an October 2016 release, the film was delayed in order to avoid competition from ', Boo! A Madea Halloween, ', and Keeping Up with the Joneses. It was rescheduled for a limited roll out on 23 December 2016, followed by a wide release on 6 January 2017. The film was released in the United Kingdom on 1 January 2017, by Entertainment One and Lionsgate, and in India on 6 January 2017, by B4U Relativity.

Reception

Box office

A Monster Calls grossed $3.7 million in the United States and Canada and $43.5 million in other territories for a worldwide total of $47.2 million, against a production budget of $43 million.
In North America, the film had its wide release alongside the opening of and the wide expansions of Hidden Figures and Lion, and was initially expected to gross around $10 million from 1,523 theaters over the weekend. However, after making just $659,000 on its first day, weekend projections were lowered to $2 million, which it ended up grossing, finishing 13th at the box office. In its second weekend of wide release it grossed $537,262 and in its third week made just $19,080 after being pulled from all but 42 theaters, one of the biggest third week theater drops in history.

Critical response

The aggregate site Rotten Tomatoes gives the film an approval rating of 86% based on 259 reviews, and an average rating of 7.58/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "A Monster Calls deftly balances dark themes and fantastical elements to deliver an engrossing and uncommonly moving entry in the crowded coming-of-age genre." At Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 76 out of 100, based on 40 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A" on an A+ to F scale.

Accolades