Monster Hangover – COLOSSAL

Science fiction has always excelled in the use of metaphor.  Classically it was used by storytellers wanting to tackle taboo subject matter that could never be talked about directly, like racism, religion, or authoritarianism.  Sure, this guy is an alien, but he’s really an immigrant.  People are being replaced by evil plants, but the plants are really communism.  That sort of thing.  These days, though, with relaxed censorship and an open social discourse, we can tackle pretty much any topic or taboo head on.  Does that make metaphor less relevant?    If we already have DANCES WITH WOLVES, do we really need AVATAR to turn everyone blue and throw in dragons and machine-guns and shit?  The answer, of course, is yes.  All movies are better with dragons.  Plus, metaphors are fun.  They can add gravitas to a silly concept or lighten up a heavy subject.  Sometimes, though, your metaphor about the unintentional consequences of irresponsible behavior can get away from you and end up destroying a bunch of buildings in downtown Seoul, Korea.  Because that’s just what happens in Nacho Vigalondo’s sweetly absurd relationship/kaiju movie, COLOSSAL.

Capsule:

Gloria (Anne Hathaway) is at a low point.  She lost her sweet writing gig for being a touch too sarcastic.  Her successful, boring boyfriend, Tim (Dan Stevens) kicked her out of his Manhattan apartment for being a boozy lay about.  Now she is forced to move back to her parent’s vacant house in her small New England hometown.  Things look up when she runs into her childhood friend Oscar (Jason Sudeikis), who offers her a job working at his bar.  Gloria is slowly-very slowly-putting her life back together when she realizes she has a strange connection with the mysterious, giant monster who has been attacking Seoul, Korea lately.  It always appears at the same time, just as she is wandering drunkenly through a playground on her way back from the bar.  Turns out that the colossal kaiju is somehow linked to Gloria, and every action she takes in the playground is disastrously mirrored halfway around the world.  Gloria is horrified, but when the increasingly controlling Oscar learns that he has his own avatar in Seoul, he sees the chance to be the big man he’s always dreamed of and keep Gloria by his side for good.

This wonderful little film brings together two of my favorite things, kaiju and drinking.  And a strong female lead.  Probably should have used that one instead of drinking.  To be honest, though, there is much more drinking going on than kaiju action, and Anne Hathaway’s Gloria is pretty awful for the first half of the movie.  Not awful in a mean way, awful in the enjoyable, train wreck sort of way.  The heart of the movie is watching her take slow, awkward, incredibly destructive steps toward being strong. 

Hathaway is as close to perfect casting as you could get.  She has a knack for playing likable, multi-dimensional women who can’t quite get their shit together.  She embodies Gloria’s emotionally adrift boozer to a tee, from her just enough to be cute without requiring any effort hairstyle, to her pricelessly immature facial expressions.  We can’t feel that sorry for her ending up back in her childhood town, forced to crash in her parent’s empty house. One, because it is all her own doing, and two because, as downward spirals go, this is a slow and gentle ride.  She still has a place to live, if uncomfortably, and enough money and sympathy to survive.  Her drinking isn’t so much a crutch against the pain as it is a distraction from her directionless life.  What else was she to fill up her time with?  

This is because Gloria’s problem isn’t alcohol, it’s men.  Intentionally or not, Gloria wears a sign on her back that says in blinking neon “SAVE ME”, and there is always a seemingly proper gentleman ready to swoop her off her feet and sort out her life for her.  In a way, drinking is a defense mechanism, putting a barrier between her and the overly controlling jerks she attracts.  

Compared to Gloria’s hot mess, the men start off looking great.  Take Dan Stevens, or as he’s better known, that guy from Downton Abbey.  Tim seems to be the reasonable one in the beginning.  Who can blame him for kicking Gloria out of his apartment?  She can’t even keep her lame excuses straight after being caught sneaking in after a night of drinking with her vapid party friends.  He puts his foot down for her own good, and remains stern when she calls up, drunk and rambling about a monster attack on the other side of the world.  Once he gets wind that she may actually be pulling her life together without him, he suddenly lays on that apologetic British charm.    

Oscar is the worst.  Literally, demonstrably, the worst.  He starts off looking great.  He’s the grounded one, a responsible adult running a modest business.  Just the guy to guide Gloria to the right path.  If this were a romantic comedy, he would be the Patrick Dempsey type, the sort of boring square that stands up in the end and, in a moving little monologue, accepts the girl just as she is, flaws and all.  This ain’t that kind of movie.  Underneath all the friendly support and awe shucks charm is a manipulative, self-loathing prick who needs to control everyone in his pathetic little orbit.  Oscar is just the man Gloria needs to show her she doesn’t need a man.

Not only is Oscar a smooth operator, he has an ace up his denim sleeve.  He owns a bar, and alcohol is Gloria’s kryptonite… if kryptonite made Superman really silly and forget stuff instead of killing him.  Oscar exploits Gloria’s weakness like a pro.  He doesn’t push, he just provides.  A beer here, a futon there, little things to make her feel indebted.  He fills her empty house with second hand furniture that he claims she asked him for, knowing that she was too plastered to remember if it’s true.  He has weaponized generosity.

He’s so subtle about it, Gloria may have gotten completely sucked into his little trap if her vice hadn’t manifested in the most unsubtle way imaginable, a giant, city destroying monster.  She is horrified at the idea that she might be the cause of all the devastation, and even more so after a drunken experiment confirms it.  Oscar, however, just sees it as another way to manipulate her into staying close.  Once he discovers his own kajiu, he completely drops his nice guy facade, especially when the world clearly labels the giant robot as the villain of this monster drama.  

Oscar blackmails Gloria into hanging around, under the threat of daily robot rampages.  He feels no empathy for the hundreds of innocent people he could be killing with his childish tantrums.  Interestingly, Oscar’s obsession with Gloria doesn’t seem to be physically motivated.  His goal is more about keeping her as trapped and unhappy as he is, company for his misery.  He gets jealous when she has a drunken hook up with his handsome but totally useless friend, Joel (Austin Stowell), and when Tim shows up to woo her back.  Even then, though, he acts less like a romantic rival and more like a possessive bully on the playground.  Which is how the whole mess got started.  

The best fight in the movie isn’t between the massive avatars, it’s between two average humans.  After a battle of wills in Gloria's house, Oscar is determined to punish her for defying him. When he makes a break for the magic kaiju park, Gloria tries to stop him by turning all his gifted furniture against him.  She smashes him with a chair, drops a bookcase on him, and tries to squash him behind the giant TV.  He has to leap out of a second story window to get away from her.  Once they reach the park, the struggle takes an unpleasant turn.  Oscar sucker punches her and forces her to watch as stomps around, causing untold destruction on the other side of the world.  Things would have gone differently if she'd shown up packing an ottoman.

In the end, it all comes down to Gloria doing what she has spent her whole life avoiding, taking responsibility and fixing her own problems.  I love the moment when she calls Tim as she is walking into Seoul’s surprisingly populated kaiju boxing ring.  At first it seems like she is reaching out to profess her love in case her plan ends badly, but really it’s just to call him out for being a controlling knob and to dump him for good.  One down, one to go.

Scientifically speaking, the final face off with Oscar is preposterous, but so is the very nature of the movie.  Anyone expecting anything remotely realistic at this point is watching the wrong movie.  As metaphors go, though, it is immensely satisfying.  She shows her lifelong bully to be the sad little man he always was, and she does not let him down easy.  His choice of last words, which Gloria shouldn't have been able to hear, but seems to understand anyway, seals his fate.  The movie may play fast and loose with physics, but unfortunately for Oscar, gravity still applies.

Well, maybe there is one bit of realism in the end.  As Gloria victoriously strolls through the shell shocked city, she comes across a sympathetic ear to tell her crazy tale.  Before she begins, the woman--a bartender--asks if she would like a drink.  Gloria pauses, gives her a look of steely determination, and sighs.  Of course she wants a drink.  Of course she's going to continue to screw things up.  And yes, possibly knock over a few more buildings by accident.  She'll get her shit straightened out eventually, with no assistance from men or giant robots required.
  

C Chaka