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MONSTER
**** In Japanese director Hirokazu Kore-eda’s 2018 masterpiece Shoplifters, a father tells his son, “All men like boobs.” It’s a cringe-y declaration; the father, a barely worldly thief, may not mean any harm, but it’s sad that he never considers that his son might be gay.
In retrospect, the moment plays like a prelude to Monster, in which Kore-eda crafts an exquisite portrait of queer love that gradually comes into focus. A time-shifting tale of anguished parents, desperate teachers, and barely knowable youths, Monster is a beautifully slippery creation. Is it a hardened crime drama? A whispery romance? The 2024 answer to The Crucible? Depends on your vantage point.
Monster begins with a building burning in the night, but Kore-eda is more interested in disasters of the heart. He introduces us to Saori (Sakura Ando) and her fifth-grade son Minato (Soya Kurokawa), whose shocking impulses—cutting his own hair, deliberately tumbling out of a moving car—disturb his mother.
Eventually, Minato reveals the root of his anguish: He says that his teacher, Mr. Hori (Eita Nagayama), called him pigheaded and struck him across the face. An alleged pervert with a fondness for hostess bars, Mr. Hori seems the ideal villain for a righteous saga of an aggrieved parent raging against a corrupt educator, but Kore-eda is already beginning to toy with our perceptions.
Just when you think you have Monster figured out, the film returns to the flaming building from the first scene. Without the tedium of a “one week earlier” title card, Kore-eda has leapt backward in time to show us the Mr. Hori that Saori never met: the kind man who adores his girlfriend, nurtures his students, and contemplates suicide as his world crumbles under the weight of a dubious accusation.
And what of Minato? Tactfully, Kore-eda saves his side of the story for last, gracefully investigating the boy’s friendship with Yori (Hinata Hiiragi), a bullied classmate. To say much more about their bond—which blooms in the shadows of an abandoned train car where they go to play—would spoil the unshowy surprises that emerge from one of the most tender love stories Kore-eda has ever told.
Monster was written by Yûji Sakamoto, making it the first Kore-eda film since 1995′s Mabarosi that the director didn’t write himself. In Sakamoto, Kore-eda has found a twin soul who shares his passion for excavating lost empathy, notably in a subplot about a school principal (Yûko Tanaka) rumored to have run over her grandchild while backing out of the driveway.
Compassion matters more to Kore-eda than anything. Whether he is probing the inner lives of sisters in Kakamura or baby brokers in Seoul, he is relentless in his quest to understand his characters—and, ideally, love them. He may reveal that Minato lied about Mr. Hori, but he does not judge either of them. How could he, having told the story through the eyes of one and then the other?
While Monster is populated with tragically well-meaning grown-ups, it is the boys who get the last word—or note, rather. As Minato and Yori flee the confinement and compromises of the adult world, the film’s score punctuates their escape with a beautifully delicate piano melody by Ryuichi Sakamoto, who died of cancer last year.
In 2021, Sakamoto wrote, “I am hoping to make music for a little while longer.” So he did, writing a score that captures the lyrical essence of first love. PG-13. BENNETT CAMPBELL FERGUSON. Living Room.