Saturday, May 14, 2011

Ready or not

Monsters (2010) is a quiet film with few monsters.  Directed by Gareth Edwards, the film covers the travels of two post-alien invasion humans who have a very human story to tell.  They must travel trough an infected zone in Mexico to the "safety" of the United States.  While this alone is a great allegory on immigration and foreign relations- the film I feel, prides itself on its characters.  Whitney Able plays Samantha, the daughter of a big wig media guy who hires Andrew (Scoot McNairy) to escort her to the U.S.  This seems simple expect for the fact that Andrew appears madly in love with Samantha.  We see him protect her, lead her through Mexico, but more times than not, fail.  He makes mistakes.  Together, they make mistakes, loose things and trust the wrong people.  Monsters doesn't show us nearly enough monsters, but ultimately, that okay.

Monsters allows us to see that life after crisis will still be human.  Instead of focusing on battles with the aliens (insert zombies, vampires, infected, etc), Monsters seems more real.  In a real crisis government would most likely not fail.  Instead it would segregate.  It would quarantine.  It would pick and choose the people who lived with the insurgence and those that were able to live in ignorance.  Daddy's little girl would get an escort back to daddy.  Your average human, or in Monsters case, Aladdin-Esq street dude, would be left to make mistakes.

The really cool thing about Monsters is the opportunistic nature of the films direction.  Apparently the two actors were placed in scene and given basic outlines of how the scene should go.  For there, they were able to interact freely.  The other actors and extras in the movie were real people who agreed to follow along.  This premise provided for the great human qualities of the film.  No one seemed to be acting.  The mistakes and story were compelling.  Ultimately, when the invasion, crisis, zombie apocalypse comes- we will all make mistakes.  Great film.  Rent it.   7.5/10

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