Monsters (2010), directed by Gareth Edwards, created a stir on the festival market due to the stunning special effects that Edwards created on a super-low (~$200,000) budget. The movie takes place in a world where a large portion of Mexico has been infested with extra-terrestrial monsters, which the Mexican and U.S. government now seek to contain in an “Infected Zone.” Despite the noticeable similarities to Blomkamp’s District 9, which was also done on a low budget and focused on a quarantined alien ‘invasion’, Edwards takes this set-up and basically ignores the monsters all together. Instead Edwards uses this world as the backdrop to a simple, burgeoning relationship between Andrew (Scoot McNairy) and Samantha (Whitney Able). The movie takes on similar tones as Lost in Translation and, despite some flaws, manages to be a simple and enjoyable love story told in a world on the border of apocalypse.
Andrew is a photographer who tries to capture pictures of the invading monsters in order to earn his living. Through an unexplained turn of fate he is tasked with escorting Samantha – his boss’ daughter – back to the U.S., her waiting fiancée and suburban lifestyle. The unlikely pair has to travel together through a dangerous and unexplored world back to the safety of society. Edwards’ crafting of this world can feel disjointed and forced at points, with countless cutaways to military jets and helicopters flying in the distance. Edwards took the “less is more” approach to his monsters, but with the constant cutaway shots it begins to feel like too much of less is just less. However, apart from these cutaways, Edwards pacing and use of the unseen is to great effect. As Samantha and Andrew enter the quarantine zone, Edwards effectively portrays the danger of this territory through his use of sound and the unseen, which helps to stress that the next attack could occur at any moment.
However, this movie isn’t really about monsters or monster attacks; it is a romance between Andrew and Samantha. Both of these characters are in a sense running from the picket-fenced bars of suburban society and in their encounters with the unknown – in the world they explore, the monsters that inhabit them, and in each other – they find a mirrored tranquility. It is unfortunate that these themes have already been explored to greater affect by Sofia Coppola in Lost in Translation, but Edwards must be given due points for originality. One point that Monsters is lacking in the face of Coppola’s masterpiece is the painful, yet insurmountable, distance between the two loves; the thought that this is a moment shared here and now, until we are forced back into reality. Everything seems to work to bring Andrew and Samantha together, and neither their relationship nor their lives ever seem to really be in any danger; and – in this regard – the movie falls flat.
Gareth Edwards is obviously a talented and original filmmaker who isn’t afraid to put in the extra work to create a movie that would seem to take many times its budget. He will surely do great things as an auteur. However, Monsters is a simple and easily forgotten movie that – besides its alarmingly low budget – doesn’t do enough to draw attention to itself besides rehash old themes in a new, yet flawed, light. That is not to say that the movie is not worth watching, if only to see the nascent work of a director whom I hope will go on to do great things.
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