Monster (2023)

March 8, 2025 8:03 PM

When a young boy begins behaving strangely, shocking truths emerge as the story unfolds through the eyes of his single mother, a teacher who is believed to be responsible, and the child himself. (Dir. Hirokazu Kore-eda.)

Paul Haggis’ “Crash” may be an unkind comparison for a film that just as frequently evokes the likes of Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s “Cure,” but it’s not an altogether unfair one, as some of the more contrived moments in Yuji Sakamoto’s script betray a didacticism that has seldom appeared in Kore-eda’s previous work. At the same time, however, this knotted yarn about misunderstood kids at the mercy of a reactionary adult world also contains moments of heart-piercing sensitivity so honest and true that even the most dedicated Kore-eda fans might not realize that he didn’t write it himself.
-- David Erlich, Indiewire

If possible, watch “Monster” more than once. Not that it’s a puzzle that begs to be solved. What Kore-eda doles out are not revelatory surprises so much as gradual enlightenments, and our attitude toward the characters is forbidden to settle or to stick.
-- Anthony Lane, The New Yorker

RT 96/91, IMDB 7.8

Currently streaming free on Mubi.

posted by fleacircus (3 comments total)

For most of this movie, it felt like a combination of 'The kindergarten teacher’ and 'Hunt’ with 'The teachers’ Lounge’, where the accusations of abuse might not be true, but it ended as a beautiful heartbreak, softly told.

The tender score by Ryuichi Sakamoto was his last before his death.
posted by growabrain at 12:15 AM on March 9 [2 favorites]

I cry pretty easily at movies but I think this one overplayed its hand a little, and so it was a near miss, like a freight train that only mussed my hair a little.

My SO and I will take the First Cow style ending where the kids are rescued fine and just go back the next day to play.
posted by fleacircus at 4:45 AM on March 9

I recently watched another Parents/Teachers/Students in turmoil film (Armand) which reminded me of this one (tho that one is far too adult focused and too actorly) so I thought I'd comment on this.

When I watched Monster a year ago it hit me in a bunch of ways. I've only seen a handful of films by Kore-eda but he tends to be a deeply humanistic director and I think this one really shows that...

The first section with the mother was weirdly triggering for me - my kid's middle school time was a clusterfuck and there were elements from the mother's meetings that really echoed our experience. When your kid is different and everybody is afraid to say it out loud... Well the politeness can be minefield where if you push too hard things get dangerous quickly. I think life is more complicated for us when we don't communicate all that well - speaking as an outsider to their culture, Japanese seem to be culturally obligated to be polite (Anglo Canadians have a bit of this so I can relate somewhat) but it can get to a point where that becomes passive aggressive or leads to inaction and makes you insane.

So there was a moment where I considered turning off the movie not because it was bad but because it was too real for me. But I stuck with it. I found the relationship of the 2 boys very beautiful and I found the ending deeply moving. I thought it was a great film and is a film I've been thinking about for a long time.
posted by Ashwagandha at 8:16 AM on March 19 [1 favorite]