Wednesday, January 10, 2018

Mini movie review: Colossal

Here's the plot outline of Colossal:  when unemployed party girl Gloria (Anne Hathaway, playing against type) gets tossed out of her NYC apartment by her boyfriend, she is forced to scurry back to her small town hometown, tail between her legs.  Living in her parents' empty house, she reconnects with grade school friend Oscar (Jason Sudeikis, playing against type) who gives her a job in his bar.  Gloria is a semi-alcoholic, self-destructive mess and Oscar is also a semi-alchoholic, self-loathing mess but they are rocked out of their navel-gazing when the news reports the appearance of a kaiju (giant monster) rampaging through Seoul, South Korea - which, they discover, is connected to/controlled by Gloria.

What makes Colossal an especially interesting movie is that there are no rom-com facets at all.  In a more typical movie, Gloria and Oscar would connect, bond over the kaiju, fight and then make up.  In this actual movie, Oscar is even more horrible than Gloria - an angry, jealous, entitled drunk.  I kept having to change how I felt about what was going on: some parts were funny, some pathetic, some infuriating, and I enjoyed the fact that things did not play out as I expected them.  There's not a lot of kaiju action in Colossal - in this movie, the monsters are much closer to home.

Image result for colossal movie

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