YOUR MONSTER–3 STARS

LESSON #1: THE STATE OF THE “MONSTERS IN YOUR CLOSET” TROPE– In some ways, we can thank Pete Docter and the good people at Pixar for softening the folkloric myth of imaginary monsters hiding in closets and under beds with their two family film hits Monsters, Inc. and Monsters University. Unlike the recent It movies that put clowns back on the scary map for a new generation, no storyteller has tried to re-inject a full level of fear back into those corporeal phobias. The closest attempts have been the low-performing Boogeyman from 2005 and the underseen 2020 South Korean horror film The Closet. The not-so-subtly eccentric new film Your Monster knows full well such a terrorizing feat can’t be done. 

Your Monster opens innocently enough on a young woman and aspiring theatre actress named Laura Franco (In the Heights star Melissa Barrera) recovering from cancer in a New York City hospital. At her bedside during an opening montage is her playwright boyfriend Jacob Sullivan (Edmund Donovan, recently seen in Civil War). As the establishing episodes unfold, the long road of disease’s strength-sapping struggle has clearly taken its toll on not just on Laura’s health, but their romantic and creative relationship. For a while, she inspired Jacob and was written to be the lead of his debut Broadway musical House of Good Woman. Selfishly, Jacob can no longer handle the doldrums and breaks up with her in the hospital.

The split sets Laura on an emotional tailspin upon her hospital release and pickup from her unreliable fellow actress and self-absorbed bestie Mazie (The Deuce’s Kayla Foster. Her downward spiral consists of moving back into her childhood home, weekly Amazon facial tissue deliveries, a queue of old movies, and plenty of junk food dietary choices. While in this old brownstone, Laura hears rumbles and as is soon confronted by a six-foot hairy humanoid creature residing in her walk-in closet.

Played by Tommy Dewey who recently set screens on fire with his acidic zingers as part of the ensemble of Saturday Night and enlived by special makeup prosthetics by David LeRoy Anderson of American Horror Story, “Monster,” as Laura calls the well-spoken male, has lived in this place observantly all of Laura’s life, intervening in secret. He has chosen to reveal himself at this time because the sobbed-over sorrows permeating her return interrupted the empty peace-and-quiet, which he wants back. Monster sets silly ground rules and gives her two weeks to move out. Their ensuing contentious co-habitation fighting over music selections, leftover food dibs, and the all-important thermostat coyly leans into the pervading softness of the “monster in your house” trope and mines the potential comedy of this swerve.

LESSON #2: ADVICE FROM AN ANGRY SOURCE– Embracing snarky cuteness, Monster in Your Monster pokes the violent nature that Laura is avoiding in her break-up grief centered on getting Jacob back. As they chat and she divulges her wishes, he suggests Laura gets in touch with her rage. Empathizing with sweetened sarcasm, Monster offers all measures of spiteful revenge, from plots to ruin Jacob’s play to volunteering to personally rip his throat out. Dark as Monster’s alternatives may be, his advice is not entirely wrong or the worst, which adds to the playfulness of the situation.

Meanwhile, Laura has won an ensemble spot alongside Mazie and an understudy role to her intended lead part of Jacob’s House of Good Woman, played by the notable stage actress Jackie Dennon (Meghann Fahy of The White Lotus). This infiltration has put her in a position to make her pining hopes happen or, deviously likewise, Monster’s possible routes of retribution. Your Monster hinges its bouncy intrigue on how this predicament will turn out– with or without bloodshed.

LESSON #3: WHERE DO YOU GET YOUR MONSTER FROM?-- The grandest question mark from Your Monster becomes who our charming Monster is and what he represents. Writer-director Caroline Lindy dangles her pendulum chain between this domesticated enigma being a protective constructed figment of Laura’s imagination or a flesh-and-fur harbinger of personal and romantic liberation. Both theories have their entertaining merit explored and satisfied by the end of the spry narrative. 

Playing hopscotch along romantic comedy lines, the argumentative dynamic created between Melissa Barrera and Tommy Dewey and their chemistry entirely solidifies the appeal of this movie. You root for every provocative feeling of oddity coming from their shared time. Even so, Your Monster is also putting on a fully-realized musical-within-a-movie while this will-they-or-won’t-they game is happening. Kudos are earned in this layer by the production design artistry of Thelma’s Brielle Hubert, the musical score of Pearl composer Tim Williams, and the original songs written by the brothers Daniel and Patrick Lazour. Their big number of “My Stranger” sung by Barrera is an outstanding big number climax for the movie.

By expanding her own 2020 short film of the same name, Lindy has struck indie film gold  creating a wholly original genre amalgamation with these two fresh leads. The mashup of Your Monster works any way you slice it, from a rom-com or behind-the-scenes theater yarn all dashed, slashed, and splashed with a surprise of crimson hemmorage. When this movie says it’s putting on its “happy face,” it’s one crowned by smiling fangs. In doing so with its extremely comedic slant, Your Monster turns growls into howls.