12-year-old Conor encounters an ancient tree monster who proceeds to help him cope with his mother's terminal illness and being bullied in school.
A poignant and stunning film that I feel gets overlooked For those who are unfamiliar with the premise, A Monster Calls follows a twelve year old boy called Connor (Lewis MacDougall) as he meets a giant story telling tree monster (voiced by Liam Neeson) amidst his own domestic troubles, from his mother's illness to being bullied at school. As such, there are many themes about the clashes between reality and fairytale idealism and how the fiction we engage with in our formative years shapes us. Now typically, when we engage with fairytales in the modern day it's usually through Disney and often the lessons given to us are 'be kind' or 'follow your dreams', but A Monster Calls offers more difficult and nuanced lessons. It's a movie that helps us understand that often life isn't fair and there aren't 'goodies' and 'baddies', but it doesn't do so without a sense of hope, hope that while everything isn't always going to be alright, you have it in you to learn and to get through it. It
