One of the best movies of 2017…that you more than likely didn’t see.
It was widely believed that there would never be a sequel to Pacific Rim, and judging by the response to the just-released Pacific Rim: Uprising, there probably shouldn’t have been. The film has been met with such a disdain from fans of the first film who have so far complained that the sequel is a noisy, dizzying mess which gives a bad name to giant monster/robot movies everywhere.
One film which makes a strong case for a movie featuring the above-mentioned creatures is last year’s sorely undervalued Colossal; a mash-up of a film which featured a giant monster wreaking havoc that also managed to venture into a very real place.
In Colossal, an unemployed New York writer named Gloria (Anne Hathaway) has just been dumped by her boyfriend Tim (Dan Stevens) and kicked out of the apartment they share when her penchant for drinking and partying has gone too far. Forced to move back to her small-town, Gloria re-connects with childhood friend Oscar (Jason Sudeikis), who offers her a job at the bar he owns. However Gloria’s return home just happens to coincide with news reports of a massive monster that has begun to terrorize the city of Seoul, South Korea to everyone’s disbelief. While Gloria is just as shocked by the event as those around her, she can’t help but notice an unmistakable link between her and the giant creature.
On the surface, Colossal looks like a fun monster mash-up of a movie, which it is. When it’s discovered that a drunken Gloria is herself actually the monster responsible for the attacks due to a supernatural force taking place whenever she walks through a neighborhood playground, the movie becomes a totally one-of-a-kind beast (no pun intended). The fact that a drunken young woman in the middle of nowhere has the power to conjure up a monster capable of such chaos and destruction is amusing as its own thought, but is truly hysterical when executed. When this, and another surprising development occurs, it shows Colossal to be a true sci-fi fantasy of the highest order with a high concept premise that its makers treat as wholly real. On a technical level, there’s a subtle pop feel to Colossal in its colors and overall look, which in its own way makes the movie come off as even more otherworldly than it already does. But the strongest, and perhaps most deliriously audacious, feature of Colossal is how writer/director Nacho Vigalondo manages to give similar care and weight to both the action in South Korea and Gloria’s own journey, letting the two play against each other for a time before interweaving them in the most stunning of ways.
Underneath the sci-fi monster delight however, lies a movie about some very real issues. The fact that Gloria loses her job, boyfriend and life in the city because of her drinking makes Colossal a film about alcoholism for sure; but also so much more. As the movie follows Gloria, it tracks her cycle of regret and self-medicating without once being apologetic for her. On the opposite side, through Oscar we not only see the classic example of an enabler, but also someone consumed by years of anger and self-loathing resulting from the hand life dealt him. His story is a lesson for Gloria in regards to the kind of self-destructive rabbit hole one can easily fall down. Eventually, as Colossal progresses, it becomes a portrait of a woman finally forced to confront the person she’s become up until now and who she will eventually become if she continues. The fact that some laughs are managed to be had in the face of such proceedings is not only a tribute to the talents of Vigalondo’s fantastic screenplay, but also reinforces the notion of the kind of human comedy which can be garnered from real life.
To say any actor is a revelation feels like a bit of a cliche, but there’s little else to describe Hathaway’s work in Colossal. The actress sheds any and all traces of her movie star image to play a woman almost reveling in the mess she is. Hathaway’s commitment to Gloria succeeds in making her a person worthy of empathy mainly because she plays her as someone who herself is empathic. The moment she finds out about the monster’s attack on Seoul is so oddly touching, especially in the way she gets emotional when thinking about the people in the city. Like Hathaway, Sudeikis is given a rich character in Oscar, whose good guy persona eventually gives way to something much darker. In many ways, Sudeikis has the film’s most difficult role due to the many carefully written levels he must go with it. The fact that he manages to pull it off in the way he does continues to show his ability as an actor beyond straight comedy. There’s some strong support from Stevens, Austin Stowell and Tim Blake Nelson (the latter two particularly good as Oscar’s drinking buddies), but Colossal belongs to its two leads, both of whom take the film to places probably even its makers never knew it could go.
Colossal was poised to become a true breakout hit following the wild excitement that happened following the film’s festival run. Unfortunately, although the film had plenty of critical love on its side, Colossal never connected with the general public, with some not sure what kind of movie it was. The upside to the whole affair is that virtually every person who has seen the film has gone on to consider it one one the year’s best and the movie now seems well on its way to cult classic status.
There’s not a FULLY thought out of explanation regarding why Gloria is able to manifest herself as the giant monster, but it really doesn’t matter because by the time Colossal ends, it has already done so much in reinforcing the sheer power and imagination of movies. There’s some telling subtext here about how Gloria’s monstrous transformation represents the way America’s actions have greater, more profound effects throughout the world. On a deeper level though, Colossal does a stellar job at showing the impact that alcoholism has on those beyond just the alcoholic themselves and how such a person can’t realize the sheer gravity of their actions until regret sinks in. Colossal does realize this however and will hopefully exist as an inspiration for some to stand up to the monsters, both physical and internal, that have taken hold and give them the courage to break free.
