MovieChat Forums > The Monster (2016) Discussion > Ella...

Ella...

posted 8 years ago by songod-95003
8 replies | jump to latest

Ella played the part to perfection. While I know there are special awards for horror and scifi (Saturn being one), Ella's performance is Oscar level.

Had there been no monster and it simply a survival story between mom (who would have had to be played by a big name star of course) and daughter and called something Oscar bait worthy, well she'd surely be nominated!

But horror does not get it's due (waaay back in 1932 actor Fredric March won an Oscar for "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" and that was the first and last time a lead in a "monster" film won such an award. Check it out... his performance is still riveting in both roles).

Seems there is inordinate amount of dislike for this movie. Some of the complaints come from folks who say it isn't horror enough or the back story was distracting. These no doubt are the same people who complain that the typical American horror movie is the same old same old over and over again! Oh boy but do something different and they attack you for it!!

"You can't please everyone
So you got to just please yourself"
-Ricky Nelson "Garden Party"

[–] seany-79367 8 years ago

I watched it this evening. It was not what I expected. I was expecting to see a bunch of horny, stoned teenagers getting picked off, one by one, by a beast.

I was so wrong but pleasantly surprised. It was a powerhouse performance from both actors.

My favourite scene. I've already mentioned it, on this site, on more
than one occassion but it's worth mentioning again. The mother gets the bottle of spirits from the garbage and is trying to talk herself out of drinking it. Next we see her drinking the bottle. Next we see she has thrown up in the toilet and is lying unconcious on the floor. Her daughter finds her , lays down next to her, puts her arm around her and kisses her on the back. There was a dry eye here.

[–] savcam500 8 years ago

That was an incredible scene. As someone who has struggled with addiction in the past (and really, will always struggle with it, though to a lesser degree), I know exactly those feelings and that thought process (begging yourself not to take that drink or drug, or to call "your guy" and, if/when you do call him, hoping beyond hope that he doesn't answer. 2012's Flight is another film that demonstrated this very well.). The actress did an excellent job of selling that internal argument and turmoil, and there was real pain in her eyes. I know that scene inside and out, backward and forward, and I know how it ends 99% of the time.

And for her daughter (her enabler, yes, but you cannot fault a child for that) to come in and hold her passed-out mother... very powerful and heartbreaking. And as her mother opens her eyes at her child's embrace, you can again see the shame, pain, self-loathing, and guilt. It was a real punch-to-the-gut scene. And for those who've said that they didn't like or didn't understand the flashback scenes, or felt that they were superfluous, I can say nothing to change your minds or explain what it means; just take it on faith that they were entirely necessary in showing how monstrous the mother could be, and how amazing it was that her daughter still loved her. And that, even though she had chosen alcohol and men over her own daughter, the mother still loved her in her own way; she was just a very sick, sad woman.

And one more thing: I've seen many people on here who've said that the mother was taking the girl to her father's to abandon her there. I don't believe that's what was happening. During their exchange at the gas station, when the mother gives her her grandmother's watch, the little girl asks,
"Why?"
"Because you're not coming back."
"I didn't say that," says the girl.
"Yeah, but you're not gonna."

The girl obviously intended on staying with her father. She wasn't being abandoned by her mother, her mother had left a long time ago, even if she was still there physically; the girl had been mentally and emotionally abandoned for quite some time.

something terribly clever.

[–] seany-79367 8 years ago

I'm an emotional guy at the best of times but that scene brought me to tears. Absolutely heartbreaking.

[–] savcam500 8 years ago

I too was choked up. But, then again, I'm one of the (few, it seems) people who really liked the film, and saw it for all that it was.

something terribly clever.

[–] seany-79367 8 years ago

I'm with you. I enjoyed it as well. I think it was a better film than the Babadook. They both had the premise that the monster was a metaphor but the performances in The Monster were much better. It Follows and Lights Out, which I enjoyed, also used the monster as a metaphor trope but those films are a bit more heavy handed.

[–] songod-95003 8 years ago

You are not alone. Most horror movie sites and critics listed this film in their top ten for 2016.

[–] savcam500 8 years ago

Yes, well it seems that most on the boards don't agree (though the boards seem to disproportionately attract the complainers) and it certainly isn't reflected by its IMDb score. It's quite disappointing and rather discouraging for a film with a novel enough concept with deeper implications and meaning, only two (that I can remember) jump scares, incredible acting by the two leads who have an amazingly realistic, fleshed out, believable relationship with organic (id est, not forced simply for the sake of the plot) character growth, and an overall pretty amazing execution considering financial and other constraints. People just didn't seem to like the metaphorical, allegorical aspect ("Keep that junk outta mah scary movie, dammit!" seemed to be the refrain). And then there's this guy (user Xkape) who, for a hat, wears an ass:

Then at the end, she turns all bad-ass lol. Of course one would expect this in today's empowered female character running rampant through current films... but of course they took the female warrior route instead. (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3976144/board/nest/263282587?d=263837615#263837615)

I guess he counts Ellen Ripley as another "empowered female character running rampant...." But what do I know? I'm sure that I'm just another emasculated Beta Male SJW....

My main problem was seeing far too much of the monster. The first glimpse, out of focus and behind the daughter while she's in the woods examining the dead wolf, was awesome... even if it was spoiled in the *beeping* trailer!! And while I appreciated the creature's design (which was admittedly nothing new), and that it was most entirely a practical effect (though the CG fire was pretty terrible, as was the creature's demise), but less is always more terrifying.

I do hope this film enjoys the success it deserves, perhaps as a bit of a cult classic or it finds an audience somewhat in the vein of Babadook (though with far less Jungian psychoanalytics and the unintegrated/integrated Shadow Self).

something terribly clever.

[–] songod-95003 8 years ago

I think the film will find a place among the decades best and carry on, like 2001's "Ginger Snaps" has, as an example of how good a "monster' movie can be.

I agree the monster design was a "man in rubber suit" affair I have seen much worse' and while I did not have a problem with the fire effect, I understand how many thought it ridicules that the creature would burst into flames from a blast from a aerosol can\lighter source with no combustible dousing it. In the rain. Yeah, not quite on par with the realism between mom and daughter but that I think was more the point of the movie.

As for the girl becoming all bad ass? Think of the s**t she has been through. Then just seeing her mother die before her eyes FOR her. The love\hate between them coalesced into pure anger height-ed by adrenaline and I think that is what clicked the switch inside her mind. Had it been a 12 year old boy he'd have done the same. No sexist, feminist, subtext.

Course people see what they want to see in films, TV, news...