Movie Review: Colossal

Anne Hathaway accidentally sets a monster loose in South Korea in the unexpected and totally unpredictable Colossal.

Considering Anne Hathaway has (entirely unfairly) earned the ire of the internet for being enthusiastic (and good! Very, very good!) at her job, it’s somewhat ironic that her best performances should be as women whose lives are chaotic and burdened by scandal.

There’s Rachel Getting Married, in which she didn’t play Rachel, but her drug-addicted sister Kym. There was also Les Misérables. (Don’t tell me you need to be reminded of Fantine’s troubles.) And she played “Wrecking Ball”-era Miley Cyrus on Lip Sync Challenge. All of this is to say, Hathaway’s skills in the "hot mess" department are well documented.

Now add Colossal to the pile. In it, Hathaway plays Gloria, an alcoholic journalist who can’t hold down a job or relationship. She abandons New York City (and an angry ex) for her small hometown upstate, like so many quirky rom-com protagonists before her. There, she runs into high school acquaintance Oscar (Jason Sudeikis), who gives her a job—wait for it—in his bar.

Anyone who’s ever glimpsed at the poster art for a film with a tagline like, "sometimes what you’re looking for is right where you left it," or, maybe, "all roads lead home," could probably guess where we’re heading. Except, they’d be wrong. Because Colossal comes from writer-director Nacho Vigalondo, the strange Spanish filmmaker who gave us the twisted Timecrimes. His new project similarly takes the road less travelled, with Gloria accidentally conjuring a giant monster (or kaiju, if you will) in South Korea while stumbling drunkenly through her old playground. The monster even mirrors her exact movements, from the nervous scratch of her scalp to a tipsy, crotch-swivelling dance. Take that, Godzilla.

Would you believe, from there, Vigalondo’s feature veers dangerously into even more perilous and uncharted territory? What begins as a risky tonal enterprise (alcoholic-monster rom-com?) mutates into something disturbing and dramatic, while still escalating its slightly-silly, very fantastical premise. However, that, my doubting friends, is why you hire Anne Hathaway. You can’t trust that kind of turn to just anyone. (Maybe Rose Byrne.)

Hathaway apparently convinced Vigalondo she was right for the role by showing off a perfectly calibrated eye-roll and hair flick combination. He was right to trust her instincts. She is—appropriately here—a gifted and fearless physical performer, who can navigate from Colossal’s early comedic demands to its more punishing, soul-crushing finale.

I won’t spoil any of the movie’s surprises, but be warned: Nacho does not necessarily have pleasant surprises in store. Colossal is designed to polarise viewers, perhaps specifically those seeking a charming rom-com about a self-destructive heroine and her solid, softly spoken friend. Vigalondo hulk-smashes those archetypes, as well as how these pictures are usually resolved, ending as a parable about anonymous abuse and obscured domestic violence. Gloria grows, just not in the way cinema tell us female heroes should. Hathaway shines as Colossal's feminist champion.

Vigalondo also asks a lot of Anne’s partner, Sudeikis, though I’ve always found him far more convincing as a sinister, skeezy dude than as a traditional romantic foil. (No disrespect, Suds. I trust Olivia Wilde’s instincts too.) If he pales by comparison, it’s only to Hathaway’s credit.

Produced on a shoestring budget of $US15 million—compared to your typical monster movie fare—Colossal orchestrates some impressive scenes of South Korean destruction. Especially effective are the workarounds Vigalondo develops to keep costs down; like training the camera of cinematographer Eric Kress on suburban American homes, and letting the muffled cheers and hushed gasps of its unseen inhabitants, watching the monster live on TV, illustrate the action.

Colossal is not going to be liked by all. I can’t, in good conscience, send viewers to it without adding that caveat. Yet this I can comfortably say: Just when you think you have it worked out, Colossal—like Gloria, and Anne Hathaway—will shock you.

3.5/5

In cinemas April 13. Rated M for mature themes, violence and coarse language.

Photo: Transmission