Heartrending adaptation explores the enormity of grief.
Parents Need to Know
Why Age 12+?
Any Positive Content?
Violence & Scariness
some
Many scenes of devastating grief, anger, and sadness. Conor's recurring dream includes peril and destruction. The Monster is large, loud, and intimidating; young children will likely find him terrifying. The Monster's tales (animated) can get quite violent: A prince's beloved maiden is bloodily killed, a witch has evil intentions for her late husband's kingdom, a vicar's beloved children die, and an apothecary refuses to treat sick people. Conor is bullied -- pushed, kicked, slapped, stepped on, etc.; later he fiercely assaults his main attacker. Conor also utterly destroys his grandmother's living room, including a treasured heirloom. In some of the stories, the Monster destroys a home or punishes the unfaithful.
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Many messages here, but the main one is that humans are complicated. The monster's tales reveal the complexity of humanity: "Good" people can do horrible things; people's decisions and mistakes have consequences; no one is all good or all bad; diseases kill the innocent; children lose their parents, but they can still live on. Stresses the overwhelming and unconditional love between parents and children. It also shares the idea that what you think (intentions) isn't as important what you do (action). Themes include compassion and courage.
Positive Role Models
some
Conor is going through some of the most painful things a child can experience. He has big, complicated feelings, which sometimes explode out of him -- making him both realistically flawed and extremely relatable and sympathetic. The Monster is there to help Conor but takes a "tough love" approach to doing it; he often seems harsh and cruel. Conor's mum loves and supports him while also trying to shield him from the worst of her sickness. His grandmother isn't particularly warm, but she steps in to care for Conor during a difficult time. Conor's dad does his best to help his son in his own way.
Parents Need to Know
Parents need to know that A Monster Calls is the powerful, emotionally wrenching adaptation of award-winning author Patrick Ness' heartbreaking young adult novel about a 13-year-old boy dealing with his mother's terminal illness and sudden visits from a loud, scary storytelling tree monster (voiced by Liam Neeson). The animated stories within the story are frequently bloody, and all have unexpected lessons about humans' complexity. There's infrequent language (one "dammit," etc.), as well as some schoolyard violence -- Conor is picked on by a relentless bully who physically and verbally abuses him (and one day, Conor fiercely reciprocates). Conor also destroys his grandmother's living room and has a terrifying recurring nightmare about a horrible disaster that nearly kills him and his mum. Many scenes feature upsetting, overwhelming sadness as Conor comes to terms with his mother's mortality and his own complicated feelings about what's happening. For families dealing with loss or grief, this film could help kids acknowledge and express what they're going through, but despite themes of compassion and courage, it can be very difficult to watch. Bring tissues. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails.
Excellent, but be careful with very sensitive/vulnerable viewers!
I am an artist. I loved the animation.
I am a writer. The story-telling was unique and riveting.
I am a mom. This was gut-wrenching.
I am also a grandma. I am concerned for the vulnerable.
I have always been extremely super-sensitive. This movie shook me to the core.
I was a kid from a dysfunctional and abusive home. This movie
absolutely RIPPED ME APART!
Many parts of this movie can be triggers:
nightmares, bullying, invalidation from adults,
terrible loneliness, fear, having to "suck it up", inner
rage with no place to put it, great loss, seeing the
world as unknowable, BEING YELLED AT, feeling like
everything is your fault, and having to deal with death.
The stories the Tree Monster tells are hard enough for ADULTS to grapple with - let alone CHILDREN:
People are both good and bad, but you don't know which.
(Or, as the Monster says, "Humans are complicated beasts.")
Situations are neither black nor white, but you don't know which.
The world is a place in which you never REALLY know what's going on....
So, SUCK IT UP, KID!! DEAL WITH IT!!
People MIGHT be nice to you. But then they DIE!!!!
Or, people might NOT be nice to you. But it DOESN'T MATTER!!
YOU don't matter! You might even be INVISIBLE!
The whole world might even be a STORY! Who knows for sure???
You can't depend on anybody.
Nobody is knowable. Not even YOURSELF!
THE END!
Can most people can handle that? I don't know.
I'm not most people. I couldn't.
Both I and another close to me had the same reaction after watching: we both sat in shell-shocked silence for the longest.
I thought of Nihilism, frankly. The world-view is headed that way these days.
PLEASE NOTE: extremely sensitive people may not be able to handle 'A Monster Calls' easily. Sensitive children, people who have been abused or neglected, or those who have some mental challenges to deal with should probably NOT watch this movie.
It's raw. It's in-your-face. Then it ENDS.
It was beautifully done.
For what it was.
Excellent movie, but VERY RAW and VERY POWERFUL. Please consider caution before viewing it, or before allowing young or vulnerable people to view it.
This is among the best movies ever made on the age between childhood and adulthood. It's the time when fairy tales are exchanged for stories in which good and evil are not so clear. It's when imaginary monsters are no longer feared, but reality can become more horrific than nightmares . This film is many stories within stories, all visually beautiful, sometimes painfully sad, sometimes triumphant, always thought provoking.
What's the Story?
A MONSTER CALLS is based on Patrick Ness' award-winning novel about 13-year-old British boy Conor O'Malley (Lewis MacDougall) who lives with and cares for his very ill single mother (Felicity Jones). Bullied at school, artistic Conor begins to receive nightly visits from a huge monster that transforms from the ancient yew tree behind his house. The Monster (voiced by Liam Neeson) calls on the boy at exactly 12:07 am and lets him know that he'll tell Conor three stories and then expects one in return -- but it must be the truth. Angry at both the Monster's morality tales and his mother's worsening condition, Conor retaliates against his bullies, his father (Toby Kebbell) visiting from America, and his grandmother (Sigourney Weaver) before things finally come to a devastating climax.
Author Ness penned this adaptation of his own novel, which is as poignant as his beautiful book and features brilliant performances by Jones, MacDougall, and Neeson. Director J.A. Bayona is no stranger to depicting intense mother-child dynamics. His 2012 historical drama The Impossible captured a mother and son's fraught post-tsunami journey; in A Monster Calls, there's just as treacherous a disaster looming over every interaction between Conor and his beloved mum -- the unspoken cancer that's eating away at her slowly but surely.
MacDougall gives one of the finest youth performances of 2016 as angry, sad, confused Conor, who's hoping beyond hope that his mum will get better but who also knows (as the Monster's visits and stories symbolize) that the inevitable is on its way -- and who's desperately afraid to admit that tangled up with anticipatory grief is a sense of possible relief. Jones is also wonderful as a mother who desperately wishes she had "100 years to give" her son but knows it's not a possibility. But the heart of the film isn't simply Conor and his mother but Conor and the Monster, and Neeson's spectacular rendering of the yew-tree creature is both frightening and comforting. As he tells Conor, the truth, like people, is complicated and even contradictory, but it's what you need to face to move forward.
Talk to Your Kids About ...
Families can talk about the messages of A Monster Calls. What is the monster trying to teach Conor? How do his stories surprise the boy? What does he learn?
Do you consider the movie violent? Scary? What parts upset you, and why?
Why is it so difficult for Conor to admit how he's feeling about his mum? How do things change after he finally expresses himself? Have you ever felt afraid to tell others about what you were thinking/feeling? Why?
How faithful is the movie to the spirit of the book? What changes were made? Do you agree with the filmmakers' decisions to omit or add elements? Do you feel differently about the movie knowing Ness wrote the screenplay?
MPAA explanation:
thematic content and some scary images
Last updated:
April 21, 2024
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