At The Movies: Your Monster

The movie starts off with a message that it is “based on a true(ish) story”.

Laura Branco (Melissa Barrera) is a musical theatre actress whose life has just fallen apart. While in hospital recovering from cancer surgery, Jacob Sullivan (Edmund Donovan) – her boyfriend of five years – breaks up with her. Jacob is a scriptwriter and director of musical theatre and, with Laura’s help, had written a new play.

Laura returns to her childhood home and spends all her recovery time crying, ordering boxes of tissues from Amazon, and in utter misery … until she hears noises upstairs. Tentatively, she creeps upstairs to investigate the source of the banging and comes face-to-face with her Monster (Tommy Dewey). After she wakes up after fainting, Monster gives her two-weeks to pack her things and get out on “his” house!

Despite his scary appearance and demeanour, he is somehow appealing and they start to form a bond. He becomes an outlet for her to rediscover her power and release her long-suppressed rage and locked-up emotions. Monster convinces her to audition for the role in the musical theatre production that Jacob had written specifically for her. He is obviously taken aback when she turns up, but is probably relieved when she totally stuffs up her audition. Laura is offered a backup supporting role as a consolation, with her role being given to Jackie Dennon (Meghan Fahy) – who is totally unaware of the previous relationship between Jacob and Laura.

Her new-found confidence and strength unleashed by her “inner” monster allows her to confront those around her who have basically pushed her aside and used her. Your Monster is a very appealing romantic comedy reminiscent of Beauty and the Beast, and is well-worth a visit to the cinema to see it on the big screen.

Movie Review by John Glennie

Rating: M
Runtime: 98 minutes