Only that would be way too long of a title. And I'm seeing "Skyfall" tonight, and something tells me that would not be a very accurate description of a James Bond movie.
"The Monitor" is a Norwegian film staring an actress I used to dislike but am becoming quite a fan of, Noomi Rapace. I'm finding it difficult to remember why in the world I wasn't a fan of her before, because ever since "Prometheus" I've enjoyed her greatly in everything I've seen her in. To me she's very naturalistic and as capable of appearing both badass and vulnerable, sometimes at the same time. And she's very convincing when she does either.
Actually, that's a lie. I remember exactly why I didn't like her earlier. I freaking hated the Swedish "Girl With The Dragon Tattoo" series. But hey, she helped bring awesomeness back to the "Alien" franchise, so she is officially forgiven in my eyes.
Like "The Tall Man," this is a movie that doesn't deliver exactly what one would expect from it based on the box art or the description. In fact, the description that is written on the case is laughably inaccurate, leading me to believe that the blurb was written by someone who had maybe only seen the trailer, and not the film itself. I say that because it gets rather specific about a plot point that doesn't actually happen, but I can imagine that had you only watched the trailer, you might believe that's where it's going.
I love finding stupid stuff like that. It's almost as fun as reading the descriptions under the ratings, especially when it's a PG-13 movies so they can get really specific about stuff like "TEEN PARTYING AND SMOKING" or "HORROR VIOLENCE" or "GORE AND SLIME." Yes, that last one exists. "Alien Vs. Predator" was rated PG-13 partly due to slime. That's awesome. But I digress.
What's going on in "The Monitor" is that Anna (Noomi Rapace) and her 8 year old son Anders (Vetle Ovenild Werring, who looks like a Norwegian mini-James McAvoy) move into an apartment after being relocated by social services after she divorces her abusive husband. Despite being placed somewhere he could never find her, Anna is still a bit high-strung and doesn't take any chances with her son, who she keeps on a very tight leash.
Actually, she's one of those moms who would probably use an actual leash on her son.
When it becomes clear that the kid should probably sleep in his own bed at some point, Anna decides that even down the hallway is too far away for her, and buys a baby monitor to put in Anders' room so she can hear if anything happens. Then, one night, a child's horrible screaming comes from the monitor, but it isn't from Anders' room. She realizes that it's picking up another monitor's signal, coming from somewhere else in their apartment complex.
That alone could have made for an interesting movie, but "The Monitor" does something which is either ambitious or kind of stupid. I can't really decide. In any case it did tend to make the whole film feel a little bloated and unfocused. What they did is essentially try to railroad a whole other movie into "The Monitor," because while the child's screams of horror are what drives the film for the first act or so, and it keeps showing up every once in a while to remind us of it, not too far in it starts fading further and further into the background as another plot starts to rear its head.
Plot #2 is essentially asking the question that I always dread a movie asking: "Is the main character crazy?" I really hate when movies go there, because the answer is almost always "Yes." I am having difficulty remembering a movie that started dropping hints about the main character's sanity which turned out to be a red herring, now that I think about it. And it's not that every movie that does that is bad, I'm just tired of the twist because it's expected at that point, and not a twist at all.
Here we have Noomi doing her best "Conspiracy Keenau" face...
"The Monitor" makes it pretty clear, however, that Anna is nuts. They don't keep it ambiguous till the end, so there's a point for them in that regard. At least they didn't attempt to lamely string us along. There's a scene about a half hour in which directly shows us that she is seeing all kinds of crap, and she goes ahead and admits it. Although the true depths of her insanity aren't revealed until the end, which is actually decently effective because you're probably not going to be expecting further reveals if a reveal like that has been made earlier.
There were two things from "The Monitor" that I think worked best for me, and are probably what I would recommend it based on. The first was that I really liked the relationship between Anna and Helge, an electronics store employee played by Kristoffer Joner. They made a cute couple, if a bit awkward and shy, but I really did want to see things work out between the two of them. Especially since Helge is a big, nerdy, almost-loser trapped in a customer service job, which describes me perfectly, and it was nice to imagine me landing a chick who looked like Noomi Rapace.
The second thing was the very ending of the film. Now, due to Plot #2 going on, the film as a whole really doesn't make a lick of sense. However, also due to Plot #2 going on, that complaint is rendered pretty moot, and pretty much anything that didn't make sense can be referred back to that 'Get Out of Jail Free' card. And as annoying as that is, I must admit the argument is pretty watertight.
Nitpicks that don't matter aside, the very end of the film is actually quite poetic. And sad. And slightly revelatory. It doesn't give all the closure that we necessarily want, but it gives us just enough of what we need to make a little sense of everything. A little sense, anyways.
Just a bit.
THE BOTTOM LINE - "The Monitor," or "Babycall" as the dumb original title calls it, wasn't exactly a great movie, but it did its job well, kept my attention, and was unique enough to make it interesting and unpredictable. If you like Noomi Rapace you might want to check it out. Watch it in the original Norwegian with subtitles, though. The English dub sounds like it was performed by an amateur theater company based in Orange County. Totally fit the feel of Norway, you know?
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