Fest Track On Sirk TV Film Review: YOUR MONSTER [Sundance Film Festival 2024 - Park City, Utah]

The aspect of perspective and imaginary motivations dwells in the eye of the beholder. With "Your Monster" [Midnight], the instinct reflects in the pathology of what we might be seeing. The interesting element is to wrap it up with a Broadway angled romantic comedy with "Beauty & The Beast" thrown in. Melissa Barrera plays the protagonist here in Laura who seemingly loses everything after a disease diagnosis which sends her in a spiral, personally and professionally. The essence though is that all she does is feel sorry for herself...until a monster from under the bed shows up. It is an interesting diametric of the ID and the essence of falling in love with yourself again and seeing those primal elements come through. Barrera is good but almost doesn't look like herself compared to "Vida" or "In The Heights. This though might have been a conscious choice with the nature of the character. Tommy Dewey, under some very good but emotive makeup, plays the monster trapped in her house with her who just wants her to leave.

But again the inner element of this could be completely that this is what lives inside her. Dewey gives it just enough darkness so that the humor (which is nicely played) moves into it with ease while seemingly reflecting what she needs to tell herself. Monster can seemingly can do everything and nothing at the same time constantly paralleling Laura at certain points. The film plays in the Midnight section and for the most part it kilters from that until the final act which tends to make what was really going on more understood but a little overdone. The antagonist is an ex-boyfriend as well so there is some interesting blame and perspective choices thrown into the mix (as well as projection). One scene musically really plays it well between Monster and Laura but it is almost a Rachel/Deckard moment where one knows everything is doomed. The music choices beyond the musical elements is interesting as they do play to an almost Sunset Boulevard motif. What really keeps the film moving are the comedic bits which are balanced from an inherent sobbing montage of Barrera which is meant to be funny as well. That said, "My Monster" plays tonally all over the place while still keeping consistent except in the final minutes (which again works) when it takes a sharper edged turn than one would expect. B

By Tim Wassberg