Your Monster

Droll showbiz comedy? Medical scare melodrama? Haunted house horror? The early goings-on in Caroline Lindy’s feature debut feel refreshingly hard to get a handle on. In its opening sequence, Melissa Barrera is shuttled through a lengthy hospital stay to the gee-whiz croon of Put On a Happy Face from Broadway’s Bye Bye Birdie, which finally gives way to the shriek of horror movie strings. As Barrera’s Laura returns to her New York brownstone to lick the twin wounds of recent cancer treatment and the break-up that cruelly accompanied it, we sense she’s not alone. A malignant presence seems to stalk her every move, making plans of its own while Laura herself plots to return herself to the cast of Broadway’s hottest new musical, and perhaps the callous heart of its director. Is this the most whimsical of slasher horrors? Or is it the spookiest of theatre kid nerd-outs? In truth, neither descriptor really fits the bill.

It’s hardly a spoiler to disclose that the presence in Laura’s house proves to not be so malignant. Instead, he arrives in the form of a shaggy monster man (Casual’s Tommy Dewey), though his monstrousness largely extends to the poor manners and unwashed appearance of your average bad roommate. What begins as tense soon unfurls into a comfortable domestic balance. He makes the messes until she learns to stop cleaning them up, effectively freed by her monster’s counsel to embrace and pursue her own self-worth. That’s all well and good, on the face of it. Laura and her monster curl up and cry to Golden Age musicals, recite Shakespeare and carry out an impromptu performance of Leon Russell’s A Song for You, which may have felt like a cheat code were it not for that song’s irresistible emotional shimmer. Yet something feels lost whenever the Beast to Laura’s Beauty takes the stage. Your Monster becomes more predictable, not less.

Where Lindy’s film works best is as a showcase for Barrera. Afforded a wider emotional range than the Scream franchise could ever claim, the actress proves a winning comic lead, and Your Monster is never more at ease than in simply letting her be. Whether indulging in some well-earned private wallowing over heartbreak (“He loves her so much!” she sobs over her copy of Frankenstein) or letting loose a long-restrained torrent of fury, Barrera makes Your Monster featherlight yet grounded; sweet, but just on the right side of sugary. Whenever her hairy sounding board returns, one feels Your Monster’s twee gears turning. The monster’s edges are simply too soft, their romance too neatly arranged. This promising debut feels most alive with a sting in its sweetness.

Thomas Messner

Your Monster does not have a UK release date yet.

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