When you go to Fantastic Fest you expect to see a few films that surprise you. You’re never disappointed, but there are always those two, three, even five movies that you just can’t stop thinking and talking about after you leave. They capture the stories that you kind of fall in love with. This year, one of those films was Colossal.
The setup for Colossal isn’t necessarily simple, but here it goes. Gloria (Anne Hathaway) tries to deal with her alcoholism by going back to her hometown. Once there, she reconnects with her childhood friend, Oscar (Jason Sudeikis). They quickly indulge each others bad habits and become drinking buddies. After a particularly heavy couple of nights, the two learn that they could in fact be connected to the monsters suddenly appearing and destroying Seoul, Korea.
Follow me? Don’t worry about it – you’ll get it when you see the film.
What starts out of a typical, quirky American indie film turns into a comedic, and sometimes very dark, genre bender that is always inventive. Director and writer Nacho Vigalondo (a Fantastic Fest staple), creates an experience full of ambitious ideas, endless joy, and heart. When his characters struggle, you empathize with them, and yet you also indulge along with their bad decisions and late nights at the bar.
Anne Hathaway plays Gloria with a broken sense of hope. The actress that everyone loves to hate is finally and truly trying to steer away from her “Anne Hathaway-isms” in this role, and mostly succeeds. She’s charming, full of faults, sad, and sometimes even gritty. Gloria carries the film, and we want her to win. In terms of acting, though, Jason Sudeikis is the standout for me. He plays against type in the role of Oscar, and his success in his more ominous scenes could very well open a new path for his career – that of the bad guy. I’ve always been a fan of his jocular, all-American vibe, but he’s tapped into something incredible here.
I can’t talk about this movie without a little love for the monsters. Sometimes they’re the show stealers. Not only are they both scary (when stomping the buildings) and amusing (when patting their heads or dancing), they are visually exciting. Designed with a special love of monsters (by a person after my own heart), both the reptile and the robot are what truly make this film unique. They are extensions of the human characters, but are beasts all their own.
Colossal is first and foremost an allegory for poor behavior – in this context, alcohol abuse, perpetual self-destructiveness, and selfish acts. We all contend with “the beast of burden,” that thing that weighs us down. For Gloria, it’s a sense of worth, which leads to her to drinking. For Oscar, it’s much the same thing, but he’s never experienced a true sense of accomplishment, so his behavior sways darker than Gloria’s. When the two collide, it’s a destructive event that the world will not soon forget.
The movie isn’t breaking any new narrative ground. You’ve seen this premise before – in order to grow up, you must conquer your demons – but you have never seen it packaged like this. I’m a huge fan of he reinvention of story, and Vigalondo has not only reinvented it, he’s smashed it to pieces and built it back up with his own vision. I can’t wait to watch it again.