Monsters is a film that was recommended to me by the Frighfest programmers, and while it caught my interest, I didn't quite know what to expect. At first I thought it was an animated comedy, and although I was quickly put right about that, I wasn't really prepared for the film I eventually saw. To put it bluntly, I think Gareth Edwards' film could arguably be the best British feature debut* since Christopher Nolan's Memento, since not only is it an accomplished piece of filmmaking in its own right, it's a quite extraordinary fusion of genres that results in something truly unique and original. Its originality, however, might also create a few problems at the box office. Monsters is one of those films, like Donnie Darko and Brick, that doesn't quite fit into any individual categories. In fact, I think it only makes sense once you've seen it – and, better still, seen it twice to understand fully the deceptively subtle ending.
Let's start with the love story. Scoot McNairy plays Andrew Kaulder, a nomadic, front-line war photographer who receives an unusual commission: to collect his boss's daughter Samantha (Whitney Able, McNairy's real-life spouse) from a hospital in Mexico and escort her home before the American government severs all access routes from the country. Now we come to the road-movie part. The two don't take easily to each other, but they develop a bond, of sorts, as they make their way to the coast, taking a journey that gets more dangerous with every turn. Will Samantha dump her absentee boyfriend? Is the commitment-phobic Andrew finally falling in love? Well, it's hard to tell, as both are rather more preoccupied with the constant threat of attack from the giant, squid-like alien creatures that have been stalking the region for the past six years, ever since a NASA space craft crash-landed there with a cargo of alien life form specimens from outer space.
Ah, yes, because there is also a significant sci-fi element to Monsters. Though it has been pigeonholed, somewhat unfairly, with District 9, the creatures themselves are something of a red herring, and a film that comes to mind more readily is The Year Of Living Dangerously. In a way, Monsters uses its aliens mostly for context, and anyone expecting a Predators-style action thriller will be in for a bit of a disappointment. That's not to say that Monsters doesn't deliver anything in that department; rather the film prefers to create a calm sense of menace. As the couple's odyssey becomes darker and more perilous, the monsters become a metaphor for the outside word: these two ought to be together, but outside forces (life itself) seem to be conspiring to keep them apart.
I'm wondering now if Edwards has thought of this. He probably has, because he seems to have thought of everything else. In a clever move to prolong its shelf-life, the film is deliberately sketchy on details, inviting us to invest in the characters and their actions. Even the title has multiple meanings. Who are the monsters? Are they the aliens? Or is it the US government, which ruthlessly bombs them with zero concern for Mexican citizens? Or could it be the monsters of the mind that we create for ourselves? It's this element that will keep Edwards' film alive – it's a cult film in the making. He described it to me yesterday as a film in which the characters are in a Spielberg movie, but always five minutes ahead of or behind the action. They don't go to the set pieces, in other words. And in that respect, it works perfectly as a counter-blockbuster. My personal favourite, favourite thing is the film's big reveal. Edwards does something here that I don't think I've ever seen in a sci-fi movie before: when the couple finally come face to face with the aliens, their lives are changed forever: after that, nothing in their lives can ever be the same again.
That particular scene is beautiful, made even more poignant by the incredible effects – done by Edwards himself in his bedroom, or rather his studio flat. There's a lot of CG in the film – some imperceptible, some not – but it's always used in the service of the story, and there's enough reality in the improvised scenes to offset most of this artificiality. Really, Monsters is a film about a mood rather than plot, about love during wartime, and it owes as much to Lost In Translation as it does to Aliens. I hesitate to say that it'll be your new favourite movie, because we all know what happened last time, but I think the right audience will, truly, really get and want this film. I know I did.
* I do know about Following, but it was 69 minutes 48 seconds long. I think that's a long short....
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