A 2016 Fantasy Drama directed by J.A. Bayona which is based the book A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness who also wrote the screenplay for the film, It stars Felicity Jones, Sigourney Weaver, Liam Neeson, and introducing Lewis MacDougall in his first film role.
The Monster showed up after midnight. As they do. But it isn't the monster Conor's been expecting. He's been expecting the one from his nightmare, the one he's had since his mother started her treatments, the one with the darkness and the wind and the screaming... This monster is different, though. Something ancient, something wild. And it wants the most dangerous thing of all from Conor. It wants the truth.
Compare to I Kill Giants, another story about a troubled loner protagonist that gets tied up with a monster that may or may not exist, also accompanied by a similar Bittersweet Ending.
Tropes that associate with A Monster Calls:
- Actor Allusion:
- A photo of young Grandma is a promotional picture of Sigourney Weaver from Ghostbusters (1984).
- The monster's first story is about how he vanquished an evil queen (or so we think). Liam Neeson had previously stopped an evil queen in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. Additionally Sigourney Weaver had played an evil queen in Snow White: A Tale of Terror.
- Adaptation Expansion: A minor example. The movie follows the book very well, with little differences. However, some additional scenes were filmed exclusively for the movie, including one that is set right after where the book ends.
- Adapted Out: Lily does not appear in the movie, or at least she still appears as an extremely minor character.
- An Aesop: Subverted, the monster mocks Conor for thinking he would go through the trouble of walking again just to teach him a lesson about being nice. However, the stories do encourage Conor to reflect on the nature of morality and selfishness, they pose questions more than giving answers.
- Ambiguously Gay: Harry's bullying of Conor seems to have some hints of homosexual advancements.
- Anti-Villain: The Monster. He's a monster, but he's there to help Conor.
- Awful Truth: What the Monster wants and what Conor fears the most.
- Badass Boast: When the Monster describes his true nature.
- The Bad Guy Wins: Played with, In-universe, the beloved prince murders his girlfriend to stir a riot from the people, framing his stepmother queen for the murder, and successfully overthrows her. However, the prince did also rule justly and happily for many years despite being a murderer and the queen was saved by the monster to live out her life far away because she had not murdered the prince’s girlfriend and may or may not have been on her way to great evil with Monster telling Conner that both are not morally black and white.
- Bittersweet Ending: It's inevitable Conor's mother is going to die. But Conor, with the Monster's help, has managed to come to terms with it, in as much as a boy his age can.
- The Bully: Harry, complete with cronies.
- Byronic Hero: Conor, at least until he can accept the fact that his mother's going to die.
- Catapult Nightmare: After the Dream Intro, Conor startles in his bed.
- Coming of Age Story: Despite the fantastical themes, the story is ultimately about the brooding and cynical Conor coming to terms with not only the inevitability of his mother's death, but his guilt over his feelings about it. Specifically, Conor unconsciously wants his mother to die, because watching her die slowly is so painful to him, and he wants that pain (and hers) to end. But the end of that pain will only come with her death, which he doesn't really want. Part of what the Monster is ultimately trying to teach Conor is that it's OK to want to stop hurting so much, despite the only way it can do so, and it doesn't mean he doesn't love his mother or really wants her to be gone.
- Creative Closing Credits: The opening credits show the actors' names in a sequence of beautifully animated watercolor paintings.
- Cruel Mercy: Combined with Un-person, this is what Harry eventually does to Conor. This ended with him in the hospital.
- Dark Is Not Evil: The monster is a hulking massive thing made from a yew tree with a growling voice but he's only there to help Conor move on and heal him from seeing his mother slowly die.
- Deconstructed Trope: Of happy endings, for the monster's stories as well as for Conor's own. He thinks each story will work out fine. Instead, the characters get exactly what they deserve, even if they're a murderer or just plain nasty.
- Don't You Dare Pity Me!: It's quite clear from the beginning that Conor is very uncomfortable with the way the people around him, especially his teachers, treat him. This is ultimately revealed to be because he feels he doesn't deserve it.
- Dream Intro: The movie opens with a nightmare sequence although it doesn't come as a surprise to the audience since the very first shot shows Conor sleeping in his bed.
- The Ending Changes Everything: Most of the stories told by the monster seem like they have happy endings...until he reveals the truth about them, and the stories all take a somewhat darker tone.
- Exact Words: The Monster describes the stories before telling them. When, at the twist, Conor claims he's been cheated, the Monster repeats the description, that it's technically correct.
- Also when he says that if Conor's mom can be healed, the yew tree medicine will do that. Turns out she cannot be healed.
- Minor example but early on, the Monster warns against the words of men who justify murder. While at first, one might think the Monster is against violence (he's not in some form, he destroys a house, helps Conor on two occasions destroy things) but of course, he only said be wary of "justifying" it. Given that he calls himself a monster, he's not against it he just doesn't justify his actions as being anything other than what he truly felt like doing.
- Exhausted Eye Bags: Nightmare-ridden Conor sports them. His teacher notes that he looks tired.
- Fantasy-Forbidding Father: Minor example. When Conor mentions the monster to his father, the latter tells him that it's just a dream and he should be brave and face the reality of the situation.
- Fist of Rage: At the school's cafeteria, Conor (and the monster behind him) curls his hand into a fist before charging at the bully.
- Foregone Conclusion: In-universe. The truth is that Conor always knew deep down that his mother was not going to make it.
- A Form You Are Comfortable With: Averted, the yew tree is the Monster's favorite form and has no qualms about scaring Conor with his form.
- Four Is Death: The fourth story (Conor's recurring nightmare) is the one of him letting his mother be swallowed by the sinkhole.
- Freeze-Frame Bonus: In the final scene, when Conor is looking at his grandmother's photos, one of them shows his late grandfather, whom he never knew. The man in the photograph is Liam Neeson, which suggests that, if the Monster is indeed real, he may be Conor's grandfather, returned from the dead to watch over him.
- Friendless Background: In this version, Conor really has no sign of any friends at all.
- Full-Name Basis: The Monster always refers to Conor by his full name.
- Giant Robot Hands Save Lives: When Conor lets himself fall into the Bottomless Pit, the monster catches him with its huge hand in mid-air.
- Good-Times Montage: A montage shows Conor and his dad enjoying themselves at an amusement park.
- Grey-and-Gray Morality: All of the Monster's stories.Monster: Most people are neither good or bad guys. Most people are somewhere in between.
- Happier Home Movie: The grandmother finds solace in watching older home videos of her daughter with Conor.
- Humans Are Flawed: One of the main themes of the book, and particularly of the first story.
- I Have Many Names: The Monster.
- I'm Not Afraid of You: Conor says this to the monster during their first encounter.
- Incurable Cough of Death: Conor's mom heaving out a horrible cough is one of the things that clues us in that something is wrong with her.
- Ironic Echo: When the grandmother takes Conor's room, he advises her to not touch anything upon which she replies that she will be doing her very best not to. This exchange repeats later with swapped roles when Conor stays at his grandmother's place and she tells him to not touch anything.
- Jerk with a Heart of Jerk: The Apothecary. It's not that he was noble on the inside, it's just that the way to satisfy his greed was to heal people.
- Karma Houdini: Played with Conor in the film. The fact that he doesn't get punished for what he does seems to hurt him even more.
- Lonely Piano Piece: Plays a couple of times in scenes where Conor feels detached from the world, e.g. in school.
- Low Fantasy: Set in modern day, but is ultimately still a tale about a little boy and his interactions with a monstrous giant made from a yew tree who may or may not be real.
- Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: It's never completely clear whether the Monster actually exists or not. Nothing happens that can't be explained by Conor's actions other than the leaves, the berries, and the sapling, and Conor gets rid of those before anybody else sees them, and when the Monster appears to him in school, no one else is able to see him. Not that a magical being can't be selectively invisible, but there's a lot of wiggle room to go either way, though the book doesn't really dwell on it. The film brings up the possibility the Monster is actually the spirit of Conor's grandfather. See Freeze-Frame Bonus above.
- Missing Child: After the fourth story, where Conor's grandma says she looked for him for hours, so she had to face the possibility of losing both her daughter and her grandson on the same day.
- The Murder After: The first story has a prince wake up next to the corpse of his love interest. Subverted when it turns out that it was him murdering her in her sleep.
- Named by the Adaptation: The final scene of the film reveals Conor's mother's name: Lizzie Clayton.
- Never Say "Die": "Die" is only said trice outside of the monster's stories which is surprising given the movie's theme.
- No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: Harry manages to strike a nerve in Conor and is in turn beaten down horrifically by the Monster. But it is later said that Conor himself was the one who beat down Harry. The film shows the monster beginning to attack, but then cuts to the principal's office afterwards, where they flash back to the attack, which only shows Conor attacking.
- No Name Given: Conor's dad and grandma are only ever referred as such. However his grandmother does call his mother by her first name, Lizzie.
- Percussive Therapy: Destroying things becomes an outlet for Conor's bottled-up emotions.
- Practical Effects: While motion capture was used to create the giant tree monster, these
two behind the scenes pictures showed that animatronics were occasionally used to create the monster's head and arms. - Prompting Nudge: In the final hospital scene, the monster gentle pushes Conor towards his mother.
- Rage Breaking Point: Conor loses it when Harry decides that he's invisible. Then he charges towards the bully and beats him so bad that he was taken to the hospital.Conor: (while beating Harry) I'M NOT INVISIBLE! I'M NOT INVISIBLE!!!
- Recurring Dreams: Conor repeatedly dreams of letting his mother fall into a Bottomless Pit.
- Significant Double Casting: Liam Neeson plays the Monster, and he can also briefly be seen in a photo as Conor’s long-deceased grandfather.
- Supplication Pose: The parson of the second story kneels before the apothecary when asking for his help.
- Take My Hand!: In Conor's nightmare, he tries to hold on to his mother's hand but she slips away and falls into a Bottomless Pit.
- Trash the Set: Grandma's sitting room gets completely trashed by Conor.
- Twist Ending: More or less the point of the Monster's stories, used for deconstructive purposes.
- In the Monster's first story, the stepmother, who has become queen, was indeed a witch, but she did not poison the king like the villagers believed. Nor did she murder the farm girl the prince was dating. Rather, the prince was the murderer, who did so to inspire the villagers to overthrow the queen.
- In the second story, the Apothecary's healing traditions are fueled by belief. When the Parson, a man of belief, promises to recant his beliefs even if it means getting his daughters back, the Apothecary loses his source of belief, and is unable to treat the two daughters because of it.
- In the third story, an invisible man, tired of not being noticed, summons the Monster so everyone would see him. The people see... something grotesque.
- Wham Line: In the movie, from the Monster to Conor: "I didn't come to heal her [your mother], I came to heal you."
- Your Mind Makes It Real: The main reason Conor realizes the Monster isn't a dream is the destruction of his grandmother's living room, but his hands are bloody so it could have been him, along with snapping and letting the Monster seriously hurt Harry, the students said they saw him do it, but he sees the Monster do it, but also feels himself do it. Zig-Zagged?
