Sneak peek: ‘Monster Calls’
A boy faces down his nightmares, real and imagined
Like the struggling young boy in his fantasy drama A Monster
Calls, director J.A. Bayona has a strong affinity for humongous creatures but also connects with the idea of feeling lost in one’s own life.
“We all need stories to understand our own reality,” says the Spanish filmmaker, who sees his new movie (in theaters Oct. 21) as “an homage to what we do as filmmakers: The stories tell us the truth. There’s no truth in reality — reality is just a fact, there’s no logic or justice.”
Adapted by Patrick Ness from his own 2011 novel, A Monster
Calls stars 14-year-old Scottish newcomer Lewis MacDougall as Conor O’Malley, an English schoolboy who’s haunted by a recurring nightmare. Yet he faces bigger real-life obstacles during the day: Conor takes care of his terminally ill mother Elizabeth (Felicity Jones), deals with relentless taunting from bullies at school, and doesn’t get along with his grandmother (Sigourney Weaver), who becomes a fixture when his mom takes a turn for the worse.
One night, an ancient yew tree in a cemetery next door transforms into a giant wooden man-like creature (played via motion capture by Liam Neeson) with embers for eyes and large branches spreading from his back. The Monster has a deal for Conor: He’ll tell the boy three stories, and then Conor has to tell the Monster the truth behind his nightmare.
Bayona, who directed horror film The Orphanage (2007) and disaster drama The Impossible (2012), describes A Monster Calls as a movie for grown-ups, but one that’s presented in a way that gives kids an important life lesson. As Conor’s estranged father (Toby Kebbell) tells him, “Most of us get ‘messily ever after.’ And that’s all right.”
“Everyone facing big things in their life feels helpless, like a kid,” Bayona says. “It’s very interesting when you tell the story through the eyes of a young boy who’s turning into a man. Everyday life doesn’t work as a fairy tale, and every kid should learn that as they grow up.”
After seeing thousands of
“Everyday life doesn’t work as a fairy tale, and every kid should learn that as they grow up.” J.A. Bayona
hopefuls for the kid roles, the director knew he had found his Conor when he auditioned MacDougall. “If you look at his eyes, there’s some conflict in there,” Bayona says. But Neeson was always his choice for the Monster: “You start to think about how we can present the years of wisdom that an English tree would have, and Liam has a beautiful voice and soul that he was able to transmit.”
In designing the tree creature, Bayona believed simpler was better. “The more sophisticated the Monster was, the less space it leaves the audience for imagination,” says the filmmaker, whose next project is directing the upcoming Jurassic World sequel (set for release June 22, 2018).
One of the most beautiful things about the Monster for Bayona is that, in Conor’s story, he’s a destructive force but in the best way possible.
“Your world needs to be destroyed, and once your world’s destroyed, then you can build up again from scratch,” Bayona says. “The Monster is the solution when you cannot find the solution yourself.”