INT. COOKIE MONSTER – NIGHT

Monster is the latest entry in the Kore-eda filmography (a filmography I still need to dive deeper into). Still, just like his previous films, It's a deeply personal look into a character, their motives but most importantly, how that motive affects those around them.

Monster is a multi-layered beast; it retells one story from multiple perspectives giving us the whole cookie instead of just the crumbs. Usually, I'm a crumb kinda guy; I like to figure things out myself, putting them all together to get my cookie. Still, Kore-eda gives me the cookie; at points, he... read the rest.

INT. COOKIE MONSTER – NIGHT

Monster is the latest entry in the Kore-eda filmography (a filmography I still need to dive deeper into). Still, just like his previous films, It's a deeply personal look into a character, their motives but most importantly, how that motive affects those around them.

Monster is a multi-layered beast; it retells one story from multiple perspectives giving us the whole cookie instead of just the crumbs. Usually, I'm a crumb kinda guy; I like to figure things out myself, putting them all together to get my cookie. Still, Kore-eda gives me the cookie; at points, he... read the rest.

The perspective from which we view a situation infallibly provides us with a clear, irrefutable picture of its truthfulness, right? But what happens if we encounter someone who witnesses the same incident and comes away from it with a totally different interpretation? Both views can’t be “right,” can they? Or is it possible that none of us can see the totality of a scenario and claim to know everything about it? That’s the core takeaway from director Kore-eda Hirokazu’s latest feature, an ambitious, skillfully crafted tale told from multiple vantage points, all of them “correct” in their own ri... read the rest.

I'm not usually a fan of children leading films, but hats have to come off here for a really delightful performance from the young Hinata Hiiragi as the shy and shunned "Hoshikawa". We will get to him in a minute, but first the film is delivered in three parts as a fire slowly devours a city centre tower block. The first episode introduces us to "Minato" (Soya Kurukawa). He's a bright and friendly boy who lives with his widowed mother (Sakura Ando). She starts to notice that his behaviour is a becoming a bit erratic and after some investigation begins to suspect that he is being bullied at scho... read the rest.