*spoiler alert*
“Beauty and the Beast” is a story about not judging others by their looks. It’s a story of love persevering in the face of impossible odds. But one theme — one that probably went over your head as a child — is that “Beauty and the Beast” is a story about the curse of loneliness. The prince may have been cursed into a hideous beast by the witch, but the real punishment is his isolation from all other human beings. He stays away, unable to form meaningful connections with others in this monstrous form until a kindly Belle comes along and gives him the intimacy missing from his life. In a modern world where loneliness is an epidemic, “Beauty and the Beast” feels like a story that would work very well in a modern setting; “Your Monster” is that story.
Loneliness begins to define Laura’s (Melissa Barrera) life when she is admitted to the hospital for surgery following a cancer diagnosis. Her long-term boyfriend Jacob (Edmund Donovan) breaks up with her while she’s still recovering, sending her into a spiral. Her best friend drifts apart as she undergoes treatment largely by herself. Her mother, traveling abroad, only sends an occasional pie as she lives alone in the house she grew up in. Laura drifts along in her life, in pain, unable to let go of the toxic relationships draining her. At the worst time of her life, a hideous beast known only as “Monster” (Tommy Dewey) emerges from her closet.
“Your Monster” creates a fully realized aesthetic with warm, lush colors and gorgeous cinematography. The audience is transported into the cozy home that Laura and Monster find themselves unexpectedly sharing, adjusting to their odd roommate situation. Tiny details such as Laura’s sharp blue-tinged eye makeup as she dresses up for Halloween contribute to the visual feast of this movie.
Laura and Monster’s interactions are the best part of the film, filled with a delightfully odd humor. One of the best visual set-ups in the film is Laura lying on her bed, lamenting about an audition gone wrong. Peeking slightly out from underneath her bed, Monster sympathizes with her. It is a perfect encapsulation of the film’s odd humor set against the mundanity of everyday life.
The film follows the archetype of a fairytale a little too closely in the first two acts of the film. Laura’s interactions with her boyfriend feel slightly one-dimensional — the pretentious director and his actress muse is a dynamic that has played out in many different stories — director and writer Caroline Lindy doesn’t cover new ground in that aspect.
Similarly, the prettier and more confident star of Jacob’s play (Meghann Fahy) who exists solely to be a reminder to Laura of everything she isn’t as an actress and a woman feels like another cliché. But Monster throws a wrench in this simple tale of heartbreak. In “Beauty and the Beast”, it is Belle who teaches the Beast about life and living again. But “Your Monster” inverts this trope, and it is the beast who is the source of wisdom here.
But a shocking third act forces you to completely re-assess the rest of the movie. The clichés of the story are not a bug, but a feature. They are a universal backdrop that is accessible to the viewer as Lindy drops them into a strange fantastical nightmare complete with a finishing musical number. The real monsters come from the most familiar places.
Verdict: A lushly dark horror-comedy take on a modern-day fairytale is not at all what you expect, and is well worth a watch.
