Film Review: Your Monster

Your Monster
Director: Caroline Lindy
Bombo Sports and Entertainment, Merman
In Theaters: 10.25 

The best (and worst) thing about making a movie that mixes a fantasy or horror premise with having something to say is that if it doesn’t entirely work on one level, there’s always the other. Your Monster is a daring little film that tries gallantly to not go the easy route, though this sadly proves to be its undoing.

Laura Franco (Melissa Barrera, In The Heights, Scream), a New York musical theater actress, is diagnosed with cancer and begins treatment. Not only does her condition detail her career, but her boyfriend, playwright-composer Jacob (Edmund Donovan, Civil War, Tell Me Lies), abruptly breaks up with her while she’s recovering from surgery because she’s taking up too much of his time and he wants to focus on his own goals. While Laura’s mother is away, she returns to her childhood home, where she encounters an unexpected housemate—a mysterious, hairy Monster (Tommy Dewey, Wyrm, Saturday Night) who has lived in her closet since she was a child, a memory that she has repressed. Initially, the grumpy creature gives her two weeks to leave, but their odd relationship quickly grows into something more. As Laura learns to embrace her inner rage and rekindles her passion for performing, she discovers that auditions are underway for Jacob’s new Broadway musical, House of Good Women, a show that she helped him develop and in which she was promised the leading role. 

Writer-director Caroline Lindy is expounding on her own short film of the same name, which explains a lot in terms of her lack of surety as to where the story is headed or why it’s heading there. The premise is quite strong, and when it’s focused on the relationship between Laura and Monster, it may seem like a rather conventional variation on Beauty & The Beast, albeit a very good one. The fact that the monster is metaphor is clear from the beginning, though the rather logical assumption that it’s a metaphor for the cancer inside Laura simply causes confusion, because not only is not the cases, the cancer is surprisingly and somewhat problematically peripheral to the story. The monster is instead a representation of the resentment and anger that build up inside when you let yourself be walked all over for your entire life, and it’s an apt and often enjoyable metaphor. Unfortunately, the movie vacillates too much on how literally it wants to play Monster as a part of Laura, and a more existential and ambiguous approach could have really soared. As it stands, the movie is incredibly charming when it’s a silly romantic comedy, intriguing when it’s a story of finding your voice and strength and a frustrating misfire when it’s trying too hard for darkly humorous horror. This leads to a head-scratching ending that seriously undermines any empowering point the movie was trying to make, suddenly becoming a completely different film. It’s now a cautionary tale of ignoring the warning signs of serious mental illness, if it’s about anything at all. 

However controversial a figure Barerra may be, she’s an incredibly talented performer, and Your Monster is a great showcase both for her comedic chops and her powerful singing voice. Dewey’s snarky, cool delivery, showcased so effectively in Saturday Night, is on par with Ryan Reynolds. While each time I see Barerra in a movie, I am mesmerized by her almost otherworldly sensual beauty, as a chronic smart aleck, it was Dewey’s deadpan antics that nearly brought me to to point of sargasm (unless there is no such word). Donavan makes Jacob’s selfish tunnel vision and endless hypocrisy quite believable, and Meghann Fahy (The White Lotus) is quite effective as Jackie Dennon, a mid level start who gets Laura’s role in the show. Despite the fact that House of Good Women appears to be a a rather cheesy variation on James Mangold‘s Girl, Interrupted, the musical sequences are major highlights that are enough reason to see the movie, especially if you are a Barerra fan.

There’s far too much entertainment value and too many strong performances for me to completely dismiss Your Monster, and if you’re intent on seeing a semi musical with an ending that doesn’t care if it alienates its own audience, it’s infinitely more watchable than Joker: Folie à Deux. This film still stands as a textbook example of how sometimes overreaching and trying too hard to make a good movie into an “interesting” one is a great way to ruin it, and sometimes you can sell yourself short by overselling. –Patrick Gibbs 

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