Film Snail

Monster
Monster

8.0

Monster

PG-13·2023·125m

Summary

When a young boy begins behaving strangely, shocking truths emerge as the story unfolds through the eyes of his single mother, a teacher who is believed to be responsible, and the child himself.

Crew

Director

Hirokazu Kore-eda

Screenplay

Yuji Sakamoto

Reviews

lachlanthiele

lachlanthiele

May 18, 2023

7

INT. COOKIE MONSTER – NIGHT

Monster is the latest entry in the Kore-eda filmography (a filmography I still need to dive deeper into). Still, just like his previous films, It's a deeply personal look into a character, their motives but most importantly, how that motive affects those around them.

Monster is a multi-layered beast; it retells one story from multiple perspectives giving us the whole cookie instead of just the crumbs. Usually, I'm a crumb kinda guy; I like to figure things out myself, putting them all together to get my cookie. Still, Kore-eda gives me the cookie; at points, he just hands the cookie over when instead I would have preferred the traditional 'show, don't tell' filmmaker mentality. Yet, without that one little critique Monster would have shot right up to a 4-star thanks to its standout performances from Sakura Ando as the mother and excellent direction (especially when it comes to blocking actors within a scene, yeah, I know a weird thing to point out but something I wrote down while watching)

Anyway, please head out and see this one. It's worth the spoon-feeding.

FADE OUT.

Media

Status:

Released

Original Language:

Japanese

Budget:

$0.00

Revenue:

$0.00

Keywords

friendship
japan
bullying
coming of age
school
teacher student relationship
childhood
lgbt
childhood friends
multiple perspectives
masculinity
somber
philosophical
mother son relationship
gay theme
kids
boys' love (bl)
lgbt child
adoring