A Monster Calls

Sigourney Weaver Director: Juan Antonio Bayona Juan Antonio Bayona

Overview

A young boy (Lewis MacDougall) befriends a wise tree monster (voiced by Liam Neeson) while coping with bullying and the terminal illness of his mother (Felicity Jones). He moves in with his grandmother (Sigourney Weaver) as his mom's condition deteriorates, and uses his imagination and friendship with the monster to escape reality. J.A. Bayona (The Impossible) directed this fantasy drama. ~ Daniel Gelb

Product Details

Release Date:	03/28/2017
UPC:	0025192364693
Original Release:	2016
Rating:	PG-13
Source:	Universal Studios
Region Code:	1
Time:	1:49:00
Sales rank:	47,629

Special Features

The Making of A Monster Calls Making of the Tales

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Sigourney Weaver	Grandma
Felicity Jones	Mum
Toby Kebbell	Dad
Lewis MacDougall	Conor
Liam Neeson	The Monster
Ben Moor	Mr. Clark
James Melville	Harry
Oliver Steer	Sully
Dominic Boyle	Anton
Jennifer Lim	Miss Kwan
Max Gabbay	Steven
Morgan Symes	Lawyer
Max Golds	5-Year-Old Conor
Frida Palsson	Lily's Mom
Wanda Opalinska	Female Nurse
Patrick Taggart	Teacher
Lily Rose Aslandogdu	Lily
Geraldine Chaplin	Head Teacher

Technical Credits

Patrick Ness

Juan Antonio Bayona	Director
Natalia Albert	Makeup
Marti Albert	Sound Editor
Jaime Anduiza	Art Director
Ben Ashmore	Special Effects Supervisor
Belen Atienza	Producer
Alvaro Augustin	Executive Producer
Shaheen Baig	Casting
Ghislain Barrois	Executive Producer
Marc Bech	Sound Editor
Didac Bono	Art Director
David Bryan	Art Director
Eugenio Caballero	Production Designer
David Carceles	Production Manager
Albert Carreras	Camera Operator
Pau Costa	Special Effects Supervisor
Oscar Faura	Co-producer
Thom Fell	Asst. Director
Clare Finnegan	Production Manager
Peter Glossop	Sound Mixer
Sandra Hermida	Co-producer
Mitch Horwits	Executive Producer
Jonathan King	Executive Producer
Luci Lenox	Casting
Alexis Liddell	Production Designer
Enrique Lopez-Lavigne	Executive Producer
Carolina Lotsberg	Production Manager
David Marti	Makeup Special Effects
Jaume Marti	Editor
Genevieve McMahon	Production Manager
Florian Muller	Set Decoration/Design
Patrick Ness	Executive Producer,Screenwriter
Steven Noble	Costumes/Costume Designer
Juliette Oberndorfer	Production Designer
Bill Pohlad	Executive Producer
Juan Ramon Pou	Animator
Manuel Ramirez	Special Effects Supervisor
Patricia Reyes	Makeup
Montse Ribe	Makeup Special Effects
Soledad Sesena	Art Director
Jeff Skoll	Executive Producer
Oriol Tarrago	Sound Editor,Sound/Sound Designer
Fernando Trullols	Asst. Director
Javier Ugarte	Production Manager
Fernando Velázquez	Score Composer
Bernat Vilaplana	Editor
Patrick Wachsberger	Executive Producer

Scene Index

Disc #1 -- A Monster Calls
1. Scene 1 [5:09]
2. Scene 2 [4:06]
3. Scene 3 [7:30]
4. Scene 4 [3:35]
5. Scene 5 [3:57]
6. Scene 6 [7:20]
7. Scene 7 [4:32]
8. Scene 8 [6:39]
9. Scene 9 [9:22]
10. Scene 10 [6:38]
11. Scene 11 [4:44]
12. Scene 12 [6:19]
13. Scene 13 [4:43]
14. Scene 14 [4:24]
15. Scene 15 [4:17]
16. Scene 16 [5:15]
17. Scene 17 [2:36]
18. Scene 18 [4:44]
19. Scene 19 [4:20]
20. Scene 20 [7:50]
21. Scene 21 [:01]

Menu

Disc #1 -- A Monster Calls
   Play
   Scenes
   Bonus
      Deleted Scenes
         Play All
            Conor And Dad
            Conor And Grandma
            Conor And Mom
            Lily Forgives Conor
            We Used To Be Friends
      The Making of A Monster Calls
         Play All
            Introduction
            Building the Story
            Bringing the Monster to Life
            The Perfect Cast
            Working with J.A. Bayona
      English Feature Commentary with Writer Patrick Ness: On/Off
         English Feature Commentary with Writer Patrick Ness: On
         English Feature Commentary with Writer Patrick Ness: Off
      Spanish Feature Commentary with Director J.A. Bayona: On/Off
         Spanish Feature Commentary with Director J.A. Bayona: On
         Spanish Feature Commentary with Director J.A. Bayona: Off
   Setup
      Audio
         English 5.1
         Español 5.1
         Français 5.1
      DVS (Descriptive Video Service)
      English Feature Commentary with Writer Patrick Ness
      Spanish Feature Commentary with Director J.A. Bayona
      Subtitles
         English SDH*
         Español
         Français
         Subtitles: Off
   Previews
      Play All
         The Theory of Everything
         Kubo and The Two Strings
         Loving
         Race
         Moonrise Kingdom
         Suffragette

Editorial Reviews

The opening credits of Universal Pictures' Frankenstein (1931) bill Boris Karloff with an agnostic "?," apparently an attempt to avoid spoiling the big reveal. There are no such illusions in the opening credits of A Monster Calls, since it ruins nothing to know that there's a monster in this movie, or that Liam Neeson provides the sonorous voice and motion-capture performance for its gnarled Colossus of Rhodes, which is knitted together from thick tree roots and seething with embers inside. This botanical golem appears at precisely 12:07 a.m. every night to young Conor (Lewis MacDougall), a pinched and sleepless dreamer of a boy whose mother (Felicity Jones) is dying. He has taken over the care of their household as cancer eats away at her, and their dismal home is only as clean as a small boy can manage to keep it. His martinet grandmother (Sigourney Weaver) wants to take him in. His father (Toby Kebbell) wants to whisk him away to his home in L.A., but only for a short visit. A bully at school (James Melville) keeps heaping on the misery. Conor copes with his paucity of options by drawing precociously skilled sketches late into the night -- and that's when the monster calls, offering a declaration: He will tell the boy three stories (which are lavishly visualized in medievalist animations, spilling ink and watercolors across the screen), and then the boy will tell him a fourth and final story. The boy has no choice in the matter. Some things in life cannot be refused. A Monster Calls is a movie with a child at the center, but is it a children's movie? No, not if gentle entertainment is the only thing a children's movie is allowed to be, and this film isn't gentle: It's about The Big Questions, and it goes beyond tearjerking into teardredging, trawling up long-repressed primal terrors in the sludge at the bottom of every viewer's soul. Most kids' movies protect tender sensibilities by purring that evil is buffoonish and vanquishable, that nothing truly terrible can ever happen, that Mother is near, that all will be set right in the end. The unacknowledged truth is that those wishes belong less to kids and more to the adults who now know otherwise. But some kids know otherwise, too. Some kids have lost a friend, lost a sibling, lost a parent -- have had the veil ripped away, leaving part of their spirit naked and shivering. This film bravely lays the woolen blanket of grief's truth -- heavy, scratchy, but sustaining and necessary -- over their shuddering shoulders. And any adult who has lost someone dear can also find profound comfort in its unflinching weight. Roger Ebert once said that "if you go to the movies long enough you will finally see yourself on the screen." A Monster Calls is where the bereaved -- meaning everyone, eventually -- will see the journey of their soul, and the light at the end of their crushing grief. This penetrating achievement, equal parts The Iron Giant and Pan's Labyrinth, rewards those who have the emotional courage to submit to its honesty and sublimity.

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