Colossal – a review

A former journalist Gloria is on a road to self-destruction as she moves back to her parents house in her old home town. Once there she learns of a colossal monster attacking Seoul and the strange connection that appears to exist between her and the being.

This movie came out of the left field. Some promotion, some early reviews – but still it went completely under my radar. Which is a good thing, because this is one of those movies you don’t want to know too much about. It’s partly about a monster –that much I can say because ‘the beastie’ is on the poster.

A second thing I can share is that this isn’t your typical Godzilla-clone. Like Cowboys and Aliens tried to mix up the sci-fi and western genre years ago. Or, more recently, the combination of monster movies and Vietnam war movies in Kong: Skull island. Colossal can best be described as an indie-monster movie. It has all the little ‘quirks’ of small town drama like Fried green tomatoes, Trainwreck or Sister’s keeper but with an impressive monster thrown into the mix.

That’s the charm of the movie. This is a movie where the (smart) story comes first. Together with some interesting character elements –I’ll come to that- it paints a complete picture that happens to have this fantasy element in it.

‘Indie’ in this sense isn’t an insult. Most indie movies don’t have the funding for impressive shots or effect so they rely highly on acting. Colossal, however, does have the funding to give the audience some impressive monster effects, yet stays grounded in the well written and acted character that are the tradition of successful indie movies.

The acting

Normally the bulk of my reviews focus on the writing element of a movie. But apart from some nitpicks I’ll mention later on (as an afterthought) the writing is solid across the board. This is particularly so in the character-development. Each and every character is well rounded. And even though one character in particular appears to shift sides back and forth throughout the movie (I have to stay vague here) this actually created a duality that I enjoyed for the character. 

Especially Anne Hathaway is tremendous as a woman (also producer on the film) who conquers a piece of the Marvel/DC-cake by giving the audience a new heroine to root for. Her character is an alcoholic in the purest sense of the word.

Jeff Bridges once said that (to paraphrase): playing an alcoholic is playing somebody who is an alcoholic pretending not to be; hiding the secret.

Hathaway’s character is an adult with a lot of problems –that much is clear the second she opens the door and is confronted by her (as a contrast) too perfect to be true boyfriend Tim (Dan Stephens). From that moment on you root for Hathaway’s character to piece her life back together. And you hate her each time she succumbs to her addiction again.

This is a fun part for Hathaway to play. Especially since I only know her as the eternal ‘Goodie-twoshoes’-actress/person that I think she is in real life.

Playing Fantine in les Miserables or both a sweet princes in the Princess diaries and Elle Enchanted. I for one was hoping for a less perfectly sweet character for her to play (In the same vein that I want Emma Watson to play a megalomaniac Bond villain). And finally I got my wish. Hathaway’s Gloria has many faults and she swears and drinks her way through without losing the human traits like shame, humility or even lust.

Dan Stevens in this sense has the lesser part of the movie. He is the embodiment of the perfect boyfriend. Sweet, smart, rich, caring and English; he’s a lottery ticket and, as such, a bit boring. Nevertheless, a delicious little scene near the end exposes his Tim’s weaknesses filling the character out a bit after the fact.

The juiciest male role in Colossal has to go to Jason Sudeikis’s Oscar. This actor is branching out from comedy in a good way.

It’s a very complex part to play because a lot of the pain en emotions stay hidden. One or two clues are highlighted but overall you are constantly relying on the actor to bring forth an explanation for his actions. Which, as we know screenplays go, can be reliable or unreliable

I think Sudeikis manages this balancing act quite well. Some critics might disagree, but I think he was perfect for the part and a nice counter to Hathaway’s character. 

The story

Now there are one or two faults in the story. There always are.

The two friends Garth (Tim Blake Neslon) and Joel (Austin Stowell) are well written but they exit the script a bit sudden. There’s no real resolution. Joel in particular feels like he had a storyline that was left out of the final reel.

Then there are one or two coincidences during the finale about being at a certain place at a certain time that couldn’t be helped. But that’s all very forgivable since there are so many written gems in the movie: (e.g.) a person being absolutely foul to another person and still having the self-indulgence to call the other one a ‘douche’ for talking back. Or the fact that this movie managed to make footprints, of all things, emotionally terrifying. These are just two of the many fun moments Colossal has in store.

 I do wish to award my annual bad parenting award to the parents of that kid near the end.

Directing

Directing then is solid. Written and directed by Nacho Vigalondo he takes great care in establishing shots. With only four main sets he uses the spaces to get the maximum effect out of them by (apart from set dressing) holding the camera back most of the time to let things play out for itself. One of the most hilarious examples of this is the ‘roll up’-scene Hathaway performs that is equally hilarious as tense –because it comes at the exact time the audience is given the chance to figure things out.

The big monster scenes then are smartly played though ‘social media’ feeds. This way the people on the ground are filming the monster in the sky. So –budget wise- you don’t have to spent tons of money on crowd scenes.

Plus, because these images are on a handheld device the globalness of the event becomes intimate.

You can tell that the director had fun trying to get great shots without overstretching the budget (a lot of looking up shots where the monster is concerned). And the story is written for just this approach. It’s the story of Gloria – not Battleship Potemkin (when talking about crowd scenes).

Gloria’s story is enough to keep the audience interested and there is more than enough monster in it to keep us satisfied. 

To summarize

Colossal is a small movie featuring a big monster. It has a great script with deliciously written characters that are brought to life by a dedicated cast. Hathaway and Sudeikis have fun playing more layered characters than they are often known for (good girl, comedy man respectively). And both of them, with the script, give us a smart indie monster movie in our current blockbuster battlefield of Marvel versus DC.

It's fresh and fun -and people will love it for the indie hit it is. But, to be honest, most of the world will forget it. The best comparison I can give is: Safety not guaranteed. Great film, nobody watched it.