52 Films by Women Vol 8. 21. Your Monster (Director: Caroline Lindy)

 

Pictured: Laura (Melissa Barrera, left) receives an ultimatum from the Monster (Tommy Dewey, right) in a scene from the horror comedy, 'Your Monster', written and directed by Caroline Lindy, adapting her 2019 short of the same name. Still courtesy of Sundance Institute / Vertical Entertainment

New York musical theatre is a cutthroat business. That’s the takeaway from writer-director Caroline Lindy’s feature debut, Your Monster, adapted from her 2019 short of the same name. The winner of the 2024 Sundance London Audience Award, it tells the story of a wannabe musical star, Laura Franco (Melissa Barrera) who loses both the part she had trained to play and her writer-director boyfriend Jacob Sullivan (Edmund Donovan) on the same day. She helped develop the role of Lori Francis, in a musical entitled ‘House of Good Women’, with Jacob, suggesting lyrics and ensuring that its nominal author was not starved of pasta. Then she had a cancer diagnosis, received treatment, then heard the words no one recovering from a potentially fatal disease should ever hear: ‘I need time for me’. Before she knows it, she’s back living in her mother’s house, only her mother isn’t there, having sent her boxes of cakes and $5,000. ‘$5,000,’ exclaims Laura’s comically inconstant best friend, Mazie (Kayla Foster), who no sooner drops her off, claiming to be her pillar, then heads off for an audition. ‘The director wants to sleep with me,’ she explains in that jokey, ‘we all know how the business works’ way. Nevertheless, I’m not sure $5,000 covers utilities and home-delivered meals in Manhattan.

There is a neat, economical opening montage set to the song, ‘Put on a Happy Face’ in which Laura is wheeled out of a consulting room to be met by Mazie who wheels her to Laura’s mother’s house. There are flashbacks to her working with Jacob, before he severed their emotional cord. Consumed by despair, Laura works her way through cream-decorated goods and orders from Amazon. Promotional consideration is also extended to Blue Moon white beer, also currently seen in Bertrand Bonello’s The Beast. At least in Lindy’s movie, there is something thematically appropriate about the choice of beverage.

In the opening few scenes, I was amazed that the same Amazon delivery guy turned up at Laura’s house three times in a row, like it is on his route. By the third delivery, Laura wants to give him a hug. Yes, I know it is easier to cast the same guy in three different scenes and film them all in a morning, but sometimes I forget I’m watching a movie. Then after the deliveries stop and Laura grimaces in front of her nurse, who mutters, ‘surely you’d be used to it by now’, Laura senses a disturbance. There is heavy banging in her house, like someone wants to get in. The lounge light flickers on and off. Laura investigates and comes face-to-face with a hairy monster who looks like the 1980s era Beast from the Linda Hamilton TV series, Beauty and the Beast. This monster who answers to the name Monster – you think he might object – is played by Tommy Dewey with a flat nose and a stick-on beard. He has a contemporary turn of phrase, including a choice word when he issues Laura with an ultimatum: ‘f- off in two weeks.’

The Monster has known Laura since childhood, lived in her closet and under her bed, but still has good posture. He explains the part he played in Laura’s formative years, scratching a bespectacled kid who insulted her – darn those glasses wearers. He’s a protector of sorts, a chivalric kind of guy. This Monster doesn’t want to share. He likes living alone. Laura’s crying is depressing. He wants his life back.

Of course, the Monster represents Laura’s eruptive id, her consciousness made real. We see Laura casually handle a copy of Mary Shelley’s ‘Frankenstein’ – the book, not the terrible Kenneth Branagh film – which is our clue as to what is really going on.

Lindy exploits a ‘what if’ situation. What if that imaginary creature that haunted us in childhood stuck around? Shouldn’t you demand rent? This is a premise featured in a couple of bigger budget movies, Blumhouse’s Imaginary and John Krasinski’s IF. Lindy can reasonably claim to have thought of her premise first, but the idea is unquestionably of the moment. With two aged candidates vying for the US Presidency this fall, audiences want something they can believe in, even if it has no relationship to reality. 1980s nostalgia is undoubtedly in, reminding us of when Republicans used to endorse libraries.

I wasn’t convinced that Melissa Barrera/Laura Franco was the next great thing in Broadway Musical Theatre, but I was happy to suspend disbelief. I was reminded of Pam Dawber in Mork and Mindy, and not just because Laura wears red dungarees. She is mainly reactive. First, she screams. Then she screams some more. Then she introduces the Monster to Hollywood musicals. He wants to watch Night of the Living Dead and critique its depiction of violence – the zombies should strike across, not down. Or is it the other way around? Laura commands the remote. Reluctantly, the Monster settles in front of a technicolour Bing Crosby musical and is reduced to tears. He shares Laura’s taste which is not surprising since the Monster represents her unconscious.

Or cancer. There is a point at which Laura is revealed to be cancer free, with coincides with the disappearance of the monster. Indeed, Laura’s consultant even looks a little like the monster without facial hair.

By the end of the two-week deadline, the Monster shares Laura’s chicken as well as demonstrates his talent for Shakespeare even though he unnecessarily projects within the confines of Laura’s home. Once he says the lines like he owns them, he proves that he can shake a stick with Laurence Olivier. Having encouraged Laura to break some crockery to let out some anger – ‘they’re my mother’s plates,’ Laura protests shortly before joining in, giving herself permission – the reluctant housemates start to get along.

Still in recovery, Laura decides to audition for Jacob’s musical, and she is almost turned away before she is recognised by the guy with the sign-up sheet, who decides to stick it to musical theatre by giving her a shot. Just then, Laura’s chief competition enters, Jackie Dennon (Meghann Fahy) who is everything Laura isn’t, tall, blond and not in the least like Pam Dawber. Jackie’s a star and, as we discover, the creative team have decided that she doesn’t need to audition. There is a running joke that Jacob’s collaborators are constantly referred to as the creative team and that one of them, Will (Brandon Victor Dixon) holds up ten fingers as he says, ‘take five’. Jacob phones Laura to tell her that she doesn’t have the part, but he agrees to hire her as Jackie’s understudy and to be in the ensemble. This is perhaps the plot development that stretches the most credibility, but perhaps Jacob really does feel guilty.

Mazie is also a member of the ensemble, there to restrain Laura, so it seems. Much of the second half of the film is the rehearsal, though naturally there is a Hallowe’en party at the theatre to which the whole cast is invited. ‘That’s twenty people,’ someone in the creative team mutters, not that the creative team is really creative. Jacob quotes Malala Yousafzai (‘we cannot all succeed when half of us are held back’) during the first table read, which speaks to both his pretentiousness and his cultural insensitivity. The read appears to go well, though Jacob’s brief chat with Laura is interrupted by Jackie.

Pictured: Laura (Melissa Barrera, centre) in rehearsals in a scene from the horror comedy, 'Your Monster', written and directed by Caroline Lindy. Still courtesy of Sundance Institute / Vertical Entertainment

The musical ‘House of Good Women’ depicts a training academy for women in which one of the pupils, Lori, fights back. Jacob is appropriating feminism, which naturally is wrong. Towards the end, when Jackie finally understands that Laura was dumped by Jacob and should be playing Lori, she is bawled out by her writer-director. Laura steps forward to vent her rage, getting herself fired in the process.

The Hallowe’en party is also a turning point. Laura begs the Monster to attend though he refuses to do so. He has to keep guard on the house. Who from, we wonder? Amazon doesn’t deliver after seven. Having discarded a suffragette outfit, Laura dresses as Elsa Lanchester in The Bride of Frankenstein. The Monster is impressed but I guess wants to stay home watching Jeopardy. After impressing Jacob, who is dressed as a knight of the realm, though markedly less chivalric than the Monster himself, Laura is left to drink alone. Then the Monster appears. They hit the dance floor. It is a tribute to New York society – and sadly a truism - that no one bats an eyelid. Then the Monster and Laura witness Jacob having sex. The Monster acts. Jacob has to continue rehearsals with his arm in a sling.

The reader won’t be surprised to learn that Laura and the Monster kiss and enjoy a night of passion, which is unlikely to result in pregnancy because the sperm count of eruptive ids is notoriously low. It is also no surprise that the big climax takes place on Jacob’s first night. Laura makes an unexpected discovery, although it is prefigured in a throwaway line quoted above.

Pictured: Puttin' on the Ritz. The Monster (Tommy Dewey) and Laura (Melissa Barrera) share a dance at Hallowe'en in a scene from the horror comedy, 'Your Monster', written and directed by Caroline Lindy. Still courtesy of Sundance Institute / Vertical Entertainment

The big climax may remind audiences of Carrie. A young woman stands in front of an audience wearing a blood-spattered dress. Only there is something else on the stage and no accompanying finger clicks. It makes clear what we have been watching all along.

For me, Your Monster hit the right buttons, depicting a traumatised young woman’s descent into inappropriate behaviour. Every detail tracks back. Although the film has been picked up for distribution in the US, the absence of star names limits its ability to secure a theatrical release in other countries. It was preceded by a refreshing lack of logos, the blight of many an independent film. Barrera proves to have a great singing voice and the number rehearsed throughout the film contributes to a strong climax. ‘I don’t know what I’m watching, but I’m digging it,’ may be a last line that is a little too on the nose, as is the physical ruler that Laura breaks, but Lindy maintains her light comic tone to the end.

 

Reviewed at Sundance London, Picture House Central Screen Four, Shaftesbury Avenue, Central London 11:30am press screening