Monster takes the long way around to get to the movie it ultimately wants to be, and I’m not sure the process is to its benefit. Written by Yuji Sakamoto and directed by Hirokazu Kore-eda, Monster opens on Saori (Sakura Ando), a single mother struggling to understand the increasingly odd behavior of her middle-school son, Minato (Soya Kurokawa). This leads her to suspicions about Minato’s teacher (Eita Nagayama), but after much ado following her efforts to get answers from the school, the film shifts perspective to show the teacher’s point of view. This continues to happen with other characters until we’ve been beaten over the head by the implied question of the title: “Who’s the real monster?” Because this conceit is awkwardly structured, it all feels more gimmicky than thought-provoking. Eventually, once all the questions have been answered and connections have been made, Monster settles into a quite moving portrait of Minato’s complicated friendship with another classmate (Hinata Hiiragi). That’s the stuff of which better Kore-eda films—After the Storm, Shoplifters, Broker—have been made.
(12/1/2023)
