berndporr Review of The Monitor

The Monitor (2011)

Reality or imagination? What if you know that you don't know?

[6/10 · 18 February 2012]

I saw this film at the Glasgow film festival today. Both screenings were sold out. Anna moves with the 8 year old son into a shabby apartment, having escaped from a violent husband. She is scared that he might find them but also scared of herself because she knows that she blends her troubled memory with the present. The film feels like a mix of "Dead Man's Shoes" and "Martha Marcy May Marlene". The former also has an "imaginary" brother whereas the latter deals with memory and present. While in "Martha Marcy May Marlene" the transition between imagination and present worked effortlessly, in Babycall it felt like a cheat to me. It felt just as a device to keep me confused right up to the end. Mainly because it's just filmed in a very plain way like in "Dead Man's shoes". I wish they had more visual ideas, for example in "Let's talk about Kevin" or in "Martha...". The ending I found pretty disappointing because it's basically the typical art-house dramatic curve -- namely going downhill. Death is always the easy way out whereas an open ending with two troubled people would have worked better.