Review // Colossal

[projekktor id=’27803′]

Written and directed by Spain’s Nacho Vigalondo, Colossal stars Anne Hathaway as Gloria, a woman who thinks she has hit rock bottom. That is until a monster attacks Seoul, South Korea and she realizes she can fall much farther.

Colossal is a fresh idea, it has comedic and sci-fi elements, plus a kick-ass female lead. I should love this film. I was hoping to love this film. I did not love this film. While Colossal was not a complete train wreck, it suffers from identity issues which diminish the overall impact of the film. Both the compelling subject matter at the heart of the narrative, and its unique approach to exploring it, suffer from a lack of tonal structure.

Despite what the trailer might suggest, Colossal isn’t a comedy about a woman who discovers she controls a giant monster attacking a country halfway across the globe. It’s an exploration of abuse (alcohol, drug, domestic, etc.) and the tolls it takes on abusers, victims and their communities. Colossal utilizes sci-fi tropes to explore some really dark issues. The film suffers from bi-polar disorder; it starts off like a typical quarter-life crisis comedy, and then it shifts to a dark allegory of abuse. The shift is uncanny and while that might have been intentional it takes away from the overall impact of the film. The “bad guy” develops out of thin air (much like the monsters) and their motives aren’t exposed until the end of the film. Which would be fine if suspense was the goal, but it clearly was not. A growing discomfort would have been more welcome then a complete shift of narrative and tone.

In addition to Hathaway the film co-stars Jason Sudeikis as Gloria’s childhood friend Oscar and Dan Stevens as Tim, Gloria’s (ex) boyfriend. Like Gloria, both of them suffer from self-hate and abuse issues. It’s always disappointing when a capable cast are let down by a script which offers little room for artistic expression. This one in particular hits you over the head with their issues. Tim’s got anger problems and he says that point blank. To his credit, Dan Stevens still builds on that character trait and adds some menace to the would be “white knight” character.

While Colossal has its issues I’m still curious to see more from Vigalondo, who wrote and directed one of my favourite sci-fi indies, Extraterrestrial (2011). Colossal follows a similar narrative structure as Extraterrestrial – a very human story set against a sci-fi premise. Maybe the heart of this film was just lost in the many layers of translation. It’s still worth the watch if you want something far from ordinary this weekend, but otherwise wait until it hits Netflix.

Reviewed by Vithiya Murugadas.