Adapted almost perfectly from its eponymous book, A Monster Calls is one of the most beautiful dark fantasies we've ever seen. Writer Patrick Ness, in writing both the book and screenplay, captures a heightened language rife with metaphor yet brutally appropriate for the characters using it. Melancholy and sad, hopeful and empowering, the story follows young Conor (played by Lewis MacDougall), whose efforts to come of age are bewilderingly hindered by his difficult situation. Surrounding him and clouding his judgment are his single mother dying of cancer (Felicity Jones), his estranged but earnest father (Toby Kebbell), his severe grandmother (Sigourney Weaver), and the cruel school bully.
As Conor navigates his confusing and painful life, he is visited at 12:07 (am or pm) by a monster that looks not unlike an Ent. Voiced by Liam Neeson, this monster acts much like Jacob Marley, informing Conor that he will be visiting again several times to tell the boy three stories. Then, the monster will demand a story from Conor, whose recurring nightmare of losing his mother seems a likely subject. As the monster returns and tells his tales -- bizarre parables with no clear moral center or conventional narrative form -- the boy becomes confused and frustrated, and yet in small, slow increments begins to learn and recognize the true nature of the real world. He learns that people are not stock characters, that goodness can be wicked and that cruelty can be necessary and many lessons besides. He learns courage and bravery, hope and love, and ultimately the necessity of sacrifice.
Conor's only refuge from his circumstances -- or, perhaps, only outlet -- lies in his art, most specifically in his watercolor painting. Filmmaker J.A. Bayona uses this as a strong aesthetic motif in the film, most obviously in the tales the monster tells. Gorgeously animated (not unlike the Tale of the Three Brothers in the seventh Harry Potter film), these sequences bring the story to vivid life and, by contrast, remind us of the grit of the real world. And in the final moments of the film, some of the more memorable images are revealed to have been shared by his mother, seemingly as she faced similar fears and needed the monster to call on her as well.
Fair warning: This is not a picture for children, and it's not a light-hearted venture for a warm spring morning. Dark and heavy, this movie delves deep into family structure, life and death, moral relativism and inevitable tragedy. While it is ultimately empowering and sweet in its unusual delivery of a coming-of-age drama, and teaches far more valuable lessons than in many a Disney film, it will leave you a blubbering mess. The monster isn't necessarily as nice as, say, Aslan or Treebeard, the school bully has a disturbing psychosexual presence, and the eventual death of young Conor's mother is left as heartbreaking as you might imagine. But these things are also why this film is so good. Its novelty in its genre, its grim purpose and dim aesthetic, these things are important; partly because they show that problematic directors like Tim Burton don't have a monopoly on dark fantasies, and partly because this film presents a more mature alternative to similar stories.
IMDb: A Monster Calls
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