Sundance 2024 | Movie Review: "Your Monster" Leverages Charming Performances From Melissa Barerra and Tommy Dewey
8/12 ForReel Score | 3.5/5 Stars
Maybe it’s the romantic side of me, but I’m a sucker for a good romcom. When Your Monster was announced to play at Sundance, I was slightly skeptical due to the strangeness of the premise, but my skepticism couldn’t have been more misguided. In a modernized spin on Beauty and the Beast, Your Monster showcases electrifying and hilarious performances from former Scream star Melissa Barrera and Tommy Dewey, one can’t help but fall in love with the quirky originality in writer/director Caroline Lindy’s directorial debut. Blending genres of screwball comedy, horror, drama, and absurdism, Your Monster might be one of the biggest surprises of the festival.
Image courtesy of Sundance
The film follows Laura (Melissa Barerra), a Broadway actress recently recovering from a cancer surgery, and a messy breakup with her less-than-savory boyfriend of five years. While she wallows in her misery in her absent mother’s New York City brownstone and binge-eats copious amounts of desserts, Laura comes across a monster (Tommy Dewey) in her closet. Upon meeting, the monster frightens her and tries to intimidate her into leaving. However, due to her fragile emotional state, the monster allows her to stay for two weeks until she gets back on her feet. In this short time, Laura and the monster bond and become friends, helping each other develop into stronger versions of themselves. Soon enough, they fall in love and become what might be the strangest onscreen couple I have ever seen. Their romance has genuine chemistry, humor, and palpability, which makes it all the more bizarre when one of them is a hulking behemoth. Your Monster asks an essential question: What if the monster in your closet was actually a really chill guy who likes Shakespeare, musicals, and sesame chicken?
Melissa Barerra goes all in on this movie, turning in a magnetic performance and exhibiting incredible vocal capacity in the multiple musical scenes with genuine heart and some elements of her scream-queen stardom. In this role, she reminds us of everything that makes her such a great actress, and her part in the film something truly mesmerizing, sweet, and hilarious. Tommy Dewey matches Barerra’s energy with an unexpected earnestness and intelligence, humanizing the titular monster and delivering some of the funniest lines in the whole movie.
The screenplay is outstanding, not just in its sharp humor but its manufactured sense of post-breakup awkwardness, which is so cringe-worthy that it makes you want to retreat into yourself like a turtle. Laura does all of the things one should not be doing after a breakup, such as sending multiple texts to her ex and trying to win him over, despite his awfulness. Thankfully (and somewhat ironically), the monster swoops in to save the day, prompting Laura to get back on her feet and ultimately get revenge on the man who wronged her.
Image courtesy of Sundance
The film somewhat meanders in the second act, straying away from the monster himself into the messy relationship between Laura and her pretentious playwright ex who wrote a part for her but gave it to another actress. The deviation from the monster plotline leaves something to be desired, as I spent some of the film’s middle portion wondering what he was up to. However, when Laura and the monster are onscreen together, it's always a charming interaction. In a dance sequence that made my heart grow three times as big, I couldn't help but fall in love with their bizarrely tender romance. Despite the underwhelming middle portion, the ending wholeheartedly makes up for it, which is as beautiful as it is shocking.
While the film doesn’t necessarily reinvent the wheel in terms of its plot, structure, or style, the wackily romantic premise and the wonderful performances from Barerra and Dewey make Your Monster a uniquely memorable romcom, and with films like this at Sundance, I’m truly hopeful for the future of one of my favorite film genres.