Writer/director Osgood Perkins throws a hell-of-a-lot at you during The Monkey’s 98 minute runtime and though not all of it stuck, damn if I didn’t have either a look of delighted shock or a huge smile on my face the whole time.
I believe this film works best when approached as an absurd comedy with horrific elements. Everyone around Hal (and then later, his son) is a heightened exaggeration of real people. This tone mostly works, especially with characters like…
Hmm.
I’m keeping this at a strong 3 stars—which is what I rated it two years ago when I first saw it—because I still don’t think it’s a great movie, but to my surprise and slight delight, I liked it a bit better this time around and definitely consider it a fun movie.
I was writing a much longer piece about this, which may seem odd considering it is an Illumination film for children. But what I’ve realized about myself…
Got to watch this movie that I wrote and acted in at The Music Box theater in Chicago. A dream come true. Hoping that you all will get the chance to see it soon!
I ignorantly did not know that this was based on a real story until the ending montage showed actual video recordings of RTA performances. This knowledge recontextualized all the decisions the filmmakers had made, and I’d wished I’d known beforehand.
Initially, I felt this was a wonderful story that hit familiar beats and sometimes cliched lines of dialogue, despite being beautifully shot (on film, no less!) and acted, and eliciting a whole lot of hope for humanity out of me.…
