Director: Hirokazu Kore-eda
Stars: Sakura Ando, Eita Nagayama, Soya Kurokawa
In the years since his Palme d’Or win for Shoplifters, Japan’s preeminent chronicler of familial drama Hirokazu Kore-eda has been on a modest tour, stopping by continental Europe for The Truth, returning home via South Korea for lovable baby-snatching caper Broker. Monster finds him back on home soil for the first time since that big win at Cannes, and anyone familiar with his body of work will spot dependable motifs in this a-chronological puzzler. Floundering father figures. Scampering kids with secret worlds of their own. Trains. Put together a Kore-eda bingo card however you’d like and Monster will almost certainly gift you a line, if not a full house.
Yet there’s something key missing this time out. Yuji Sakamoto’s script garnered a top prize at Cannes last year, but in spite of this it could be the root source of Monster‘s problems. At present count I’ve caught 14 of Kore-eda’s narrative features from the last 30 years. He’s no slouch and he (and the Japanese cinema industry) are accustomed to quick turnaround. But Monster is the closest this justly celebrated filmmaker has come to an outright dud.
One story told three ways. Rashomon-lite. Saori Mugino (Sakura Ando) is a widow and single-mother raising free-spirited Minato (Soya Kurokawa) alone, but changes in his behaviour lead her to suspect that he is being abused by his gangly, clueless-seeming teacher Mr. Hori (Eita Nagayama). Minato comes home without one of his shoes, is found by Saori with a bruised and bandaged ear, and remains tight-lipped about whatever changes have happened at school. Determined to protect her son, Saori grows frustrated with the school, where bureaucratic attempts to appease her come off as inhuman and incompetent. Minato’s disappearance during a big storm winds us back to the start. We then gain greater context via Mr. Hori’s point of view on the story, and then, finally, a protracted third act from Minato’s perspective.
Where prior masterpieces from Kore-eda have been buoyed to greatness by inquisitive, naturalistic and above all patient character study, Monster often feels like it rushes the beats it needs to instill a sense of reality because there’s so many plot details to pack in. As a result this one feels oddly prone to dashed-off caricature by comparison. The feigning school committee and their inept platitudes allow Monster a quick swipe at the legal terror in Japanese schools that obfuscates real interaction… but it hits a duff comic note that reads as clumsy in and of itself, endemic of a wider problem the film has with focus.
Sakura Ando, so great in Shoplifters, is the fiery heart of Monster, making effortless work of Saori. But as per the nature of the film, all of her key scenes are front-loaded in the picture and she’s keenly missed after the first 40 minutes. Revealing your ace first is a risky gambit. Nagayama is fine enough as well-meaning teacher Michitoshi Hori, but his bumbling routine means that the mid-section of the film only feeds the broader narrative, and doesn’t quite offer sustenance of its own.
The third act finds Kore-eda on surer ground, at least, in some respects. He’s an old-hand at procuring charming and engaging performances from child actors, and so it goes again here. The last hour centres young Kurokawa as Minato, and his burgeoning friendship with school outcast Yori (Hinata Hiiragi). The film is at its cutest when it studies their interactions and shared worlds, kindling fond memories of past-glories like 2011’s I Wish.
This third portion of the film makes a surprising connection across the seas, however, urgently calling to mind Lukas Dohnt’s similarly-minded pre-teen drama Close which played UK cinemas last year. Monster sees Kore-eda broaching the thorny topic of fledgling homosexuality, as Minato wrestles with his feelings for downtrodden and bullied Yori. It teeters with similar narrative threats and has the same queasy feeling of dramatic exploitation.
Kore-eda is more successful that Dohnt – and its always heartening to see a seasoned filmmaker tread new and precarious ground – but as with the tentative pro-life quandaries found in Broker, one senses hesitancy from Kore-eda. His time and commitment seems compromised because of the ultra-busy narrative and its multiple other heads. This is, after all, a film that also tries to criticise the school system, portray the perils of alcoholism and domestic abuse, understand bullying, and further a portrait of mob-mentality and easy blame. It’s ambitious, but not coherent.
Inevitably Monster argues that breakdowns in communication create misunderstandings. There is ultimately no ‘monster’ in the cast, but rather the small, everyday tragedies of forming opinions based on slivers of information. Nothing especially revelatory. But what actively hurts the picture is Kore-eda’s attempts to patch over its lacklustre elements with quick swathes of sentimentality. Monster may boast one of the final scores from the great Ryuichi Sakamoto, but its an often overbearing backing that Kore-eda uses like so much Polyfilla. Mawkish symbolism of train tracks to distant lands create a heavy-handed ending that doesn’t cover-up a calamitous sense of anti-climax.
Overly concerned with dotting the Is and crossing the Ts of every plot and character question set up in act one (and not particularly good at it, either), act three fails to provide coherent emotional catharsis. When it comes, the end feels like someone popping the final piece of a jigsaw into place, sighing, then promptly leaving the room without taking a second look at the finished picture.
The Lost Highway Hotel 