Colossal (2017)

It wasn't that long ago that I watched Nacho Vigalondo’s oft-recommended time travel flick Timecrimes, and while it wasn't to my specific tastes, Colossal seemed much more my speed.

It might seem like a spoiler to tell you that it’s about the downwards-spiraling Gloria (Anne Hathaway) realising that the giant monster terrorizing Seoul happens to be echoing her movements while she sleeps, but that’s literally the plot and it’s fucking awesome. 

This movie got me pumped up. It’s got great performances - Jason Sudekis plays Gloria’s childhood friend and he was truly excellent - and a lot more depth to it than it lets on, without feeling too silly or too cliché to me somehow. If the concept of the movie sounds good to you, if you like movies that combine large and small scale, and if you like your sci-fi to take a backseat to realism but still be present, just try to go see this and know as little as possible. Even though the giant monster thing isn’t a spoiler, there were thematic elements to this movie that I want to discuss and that require content warnings, but that could potentially detract from the full experience of the movie. I'll get to those later in the review.

It’s not a flawless film. I wish things that happened in the last act had been slightly better telegraphed so that it felt like more of an organic transition. There are also times where there’s a fair bit of repetition to establish continuity. I didn’t have too much of an issue with it, but it was starting to wear after a while and I can see it being irritating to a lot of viewers. I appreciate the lack of explanation of the actual giant monster science, but there’s always an emptiness in that regard. Also, the one real unanswered question: why is anyone still living in Seoul later on in the movie?

So now I’m going to talk about thematic spoilers, but I’m going to try to not address actual plot points. I want to discuss them because I feel that they're incredibly important to the movie, and also to where it stands contextually.

Where I found this movie really succeeded, other than Vigalondo’s tight direction and great story, was as a narrative about abuse with shades of addiction. It was - out of absolutely nowhere - one of the the the most understated depictions of abuse I’ve seen recently, and it made me simultaneously uncomfortable but also really, really emotional. A second layer of plot is unveiled that was so interesting to me, but if it isn’t interesting to you, there’s a whole fucking monster plot! It also has the most hilariously inefficient character ever in it, and an overall arc of empowerment and recovery. 

And when I say "out of nowhere", I mean in ways that felt so real heartbreakingly honest. I watched characters do things I recognised as red flags and then evolve into dangerous presences I know all too well. The male friend I saw the movie with later told me that he didn't understand what had been creepy about the things I had considered red flags and it was something I had seen reflected over and over again. This movie is not Get Out but it explores something else that I found pretty important on a very personal level, and did so without ever being quite so open about it. 

Rating: 9/10 - I might not have been super impressed by Timecrimes, but this was my biggest surprise of 2017 so far. I laughed, I got angry, I discovered that I might actually not hate Jason Sudekis as an actor, and I’m probably going to pick this up on DVD. It won’t be for everyone (the way Timecrimes wasn’t for me) but it was a near-perfect Sara movie, and I apologise if you've broached the subject of recent movies with me in the past few months and I've used it as an excuse to spend twenty minutes talking about Colossal.