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A Genre Mashup & A Simply Haunting Screenplay: At The Movies With Kasey

This week, I watched two films that very differently explore trauma and themes about people’s inhumanity toward each other. Your Monster turns Beauty and the Beast into a tale of suppressed rage whereas A Real Pain explores mental health and intergenerational trauma in the context of a holocaust tour.

Now on Max, Your Monster tells the story of Laura Franco (Melissa Barrera), an aspiring actress dumped by her playwright boyfriend, Jacob (Edmund Donovan), while in the hospital for cancer treatment. While recuperating in her mother’s semi-abandoned home, she meets Monster (Tommy Dewey), who has been squatting there. As the pair strike up a tense friendship, Laura tries to return to the theater where she faces steep competition from a rising star, Jackie (Meghann Fahy).

I think Your Monster more successfully does what last year’s Lisa Frankenstein tried to do, but without the kitschy elements. The film is basically Beauty and the Beast, with Laura facing grounded, realistic problems (with sometimes outsized reactions). Her relationship with Monster raises the obvious question of what makes a man a monster but also helps Laura face issues around self-esteem and what she is willing to put up with in her relationships and from herself. The development of Monster as a character and how he functions in the film is somewhat uneven and comes to a conclusion that I am not sure was earned, but it was a fun journey, nevertheless.

I previously wrote about Melissa Barrera chewing the scenery in Scream, but since then she has produced a series of great performances. In Abigail, she was wryly funny in a role that also provided plenty of stunts. In this film, she gets to show off her vocal chops and a sweeter side than previous horror films have offered. I was pleasantly surprised by the range of her performance here. As Monster, Tommy Dewey gives a funny, sensitive performance. While Barrera’s Laura really goes through it, his no-nonsense delivery creates a humorous, charming contrast. Meghann Fahy gives a warm and layered performance as well.

Your Monster is not without its nostalgic elements. Using old musicals and the fashion and toys of Laura’s youth, the set and costume design lay the groundwork for asking who Monster is while also giving the film a cozy, fun visual texture. The film is not quite a musical while still deploying elements of musical theater to highlight Laura’s emotions. It’s a moving, fun mashup of genres that packs a surprising punch in the end and has some laugh-out-loud funny lines throughout.

Your Monster was written and directed by Caroline Lindy. It runs 103 minutes and is rated R.

In A Real Pain, cousins Benji (Kieran Culkin) and David Kaplan (Jesse Eisenberg) go on a tour of Poland to see where their recently departed grandmother, a holocaust survivor, grew up. While their tour guide, James (Will Sharpe), does his best to sensitively lead the pair and their tourmates- Mark (Daniel Oreskes), Diane (Liza Sadovy), Eloge (Kurt Egyiawan), and Marcia (Jennifer Grey)- through the emotionally fraught trip, the clashing of family history and recent struggles comes to a head.

Jesse Eisenberg’s raw, simple screenplay for A Real Pain takes the specific tension between two cousins and draws in broader issues about collective grief and intergenerational trauma. It would be easy to reduce David’s problems with Benji down to a critique of Millenials failing to thrive, but Kieran Culkin’s erratic portrayal of Benji and the tenderness Eisenberg’s David shows toward him highlight the complexity of the historical and personal questions at hand. It’s no wonder that the film was nominated for Oscars in the Supporting Actor and Original Screenplay categories.

A Real Pain takes audiences on a holocaust tour, showing more of the beauty of Poland than the horrors of the camps. The framing of the setting depicts why people go on such tours while also raising concerns about the interaction between history and our responsibilities to each other in the present. Bringing the survivor of a more recent genocide, Kurt Egyiawan’s Eloge, on the trip highlights that the grave events the tour covers are not isolated to one time and place.

Using a small cast and a simple framework, A Real Pain takes the audience on a deep emotional journey with a gripping context and haunting, questioning performances from Eisenberg and Culkin that will stick with me for a long time.

Streaming on Hulu, A Real Pain was written and directed by Jesse Eisenberg. It runs 90 minutes and is rated R.

Kasey Butcher

Kasey Butcher

She is proud to be a Ft. Wayne native, a graduate of Homestead HS, Ball State University & Miami University. She became involved with journalism editor-in-chief for her high school magazine. She authors the "At The Movies with Kasey Butcher" review. > Read Full Biography > More Articles Written By This Writer