What do you do when you realize that, at the same time and place each day, a monster appears on the other side of the world and does exactly what you do?
That question is only the beginning of Colossal, a complex story that defies genre and convention. Anne Hathaway masterfully plays Gloria, an alcoholic writer who is unemployed and struggling with the men in her life. Dumped and kicked out by her NYC boyfriend (Dan Stevens), she returns to her childhood home and meets up with old friends and flames while working as a bartender, which fuels her troubles. It's around this time, every day at 8:05 AM, that a monster appears in Seoul.
Gloria, though tormented by the pain and terror she unwittingly causes, has other battles to fight. Her real-life monsters include her ex, who returns to reclaim her, and her boss, self-hating and abusive suitor Oscar (Jason Sudeikis in a terrifying performance). The latter, we learn, has a similar predicament, and when Gloria and Oscar battle for agency in the relationship, it's a clash of the titans in South Korea.
Besides a fascinating screenplay (by director Nacho Vigalondo) and stellar performances, there's not much to this movie. It's a heartfelt story of a woman battling the odds and winning. It's a razor-sharp black comedy that never relents on awkward humor. And, of course, there's the bizarre manifestation of monstrous avatars wreaking havoc in a metropolis. The film weaves its way through unlikelihoods and absurdities to downright crazy shit, but the final act ties everything up into a rousing and emotional showdown that is as fitting and earned a conclusion as any I've seen on screen. When we see Godzilla-meets-Pacific Rim as a mirror for a bunch of drunken asshole losers in a fictional American town, we see a work of pure artistic wit that works to destabilize our cultural obsession with larger-than-life spectacle and ground us in the human element. Take that, Transformers.
IMDb: Colossal
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