Aleah Miles Española 1st SEM (2nd Quarter)

ABM 11 February 6, 2023 21st Century

Movie Review “A Monster Calls”: A

bullied boy takes refuge in drawing —
and in a monster
The movie is adapted from an
award-winning children’s novel and
centers on a 12-year-old whose life
seems choked in grief. Rated 5
stars out of 5. Young adult low
fantasy book “A Monster Calls” was
written by Patrick Ness and drawn
by Jim Kay in 2011. It was released
by Walker and was inspired by a
concept created by Siobhan Dowd.

This project offers a synopsis of the film that may spoil you.

In the story "A monster calls," a 13-year-old boy called Conor O'Malley had recurring
nightmares about a particular monster that he can't get rid of. One night at seven
minutes past twelve a monster paid him a visit. The monster wasn’t the one from the
nightmare, this monster was the Yew tree from the cemetery across the street. At first
Conor thought it was just a figure of his imagination but every time he “woke up” there
was some evidence that the monster was real. One time he woke up and stepped in
Yew leaves and another time he needed to cut out a sapling from the floorboards in his
bedroom.

The monster wants one thing from Conor and it wants the truth. The monster would tell
Conor three stories for a fourth in return and that story was Conor’s worst nightmare.
The way Patrick Ness describes the similarities between characters instead of their
differences makes the reader realize that not all characters have to be different and that
some characters may be closer than you realize.
The technique is very effective especially in this book. Two physically different
characters, such as a thirteen year old boy and a Yew tree that is also a monster, can
be so close emotionally or mentally just by sharing some experiences and overcoming
challenges together. A Monster Calls had both internal and external conflict throughout
the story and a great balance of each conflict. At the beginning when the characters’
lives were separate there was more external conflict and in the end when the characters
were closer bonded there was more internal conflict with the main characters.

Having a connection with the characters can make a story more relatable. In some
cases the characters need to be different to continue the story line but sometimes there
needs to be the characters that have almost everything in common because they reflect
their feelings off each other and this makes it easier to relate to how the characters are
actually feeling. Overall I think that this story was beautifully written and I would
recommend it to anyone.

What i like about the movie is that it explores a common but devastating emotion: the
grief — and attendant rage and fear — that comes with losing a parent. The movie
starts off looking like a conventional children's fantasy story, but it morphs slowly into
something surprising, and all its own.

What i dislike about the movie is the clash of perspectives between Conor who views
the stories as intrusions to his desire to save his Mum, and the perspective wielded by
The Monster itself and their subsequent telling.

By the story's conclusion, Conor has developed a close friendship with the monster.
Conor is now able to face his anxieties and acknowledge that he was ready for the
waiting to be ended. Watching his mother suffer was too hard, but acknowledging this
would make his nightmare a reality, something he did not want.