• Pranay Jalvi
    Pranay Jalvi
    39 reviews
    Top Reviewer
    7

    The film is a semi-fantastical drama dotted with splashy visual
    effects, notably a Liam Neeson-voiced anthropomorphic tree that stalks
    the young protagonist's dreams and subconscious.Director J.A. Bayona
    ("The Impossible") again ambitiously examines the mind- set of a boy
    struggling with adult-size burdens, and he's got perfect material to
    work from in the insightful script by source novelist Patrick Ness. But
    MacDougall, fittingly, leaves the biggest mark. In a movie-going season
    that has trained a spotlight on tamped-down emotion, he's impressively
    stifled in his own right. "A Monster Calls" is a portrait of coping
    that's both fascinating and heartbreaking. I go with 3.5/5 for Bayona directed fantasy yet emotional tale.

    January 24, 17