If I told you Laura Franco (Melissa Barrera) was going through a rough patch, I would be underselling how big her problems are. On the way, striving for Broadway fame and stardom, she gets cancer and has to undergo surgery. Her boyfriend Jacob (Edmund Donovan) suddenly breaks up with her as she recovers because “it’s too much to handle.” As an insult to injury, he has taken full ownership of the musical they worked on together and intends to hold auditions without her knowing. (Did I mention the lead part was specifically written for her?) Her mother is absent, and her best friend Mazie (Kayla Foster) is kind of there, but mostly confined to worry about herself.
Your Monster, a big-screen adaptation of the 2020 short film, begins with a tight shot of a very tired and saddened Laura. It may feel as though there’s a bit of a personal touch as you watch the film. First-time director Caroline Lindy went through almost everything this main character did — including the jerk of an ex-boyfriend and the trials and tribulations of a cancer diagnosis. Like you would expect anyone in this position to, Laura goes into a freefall of sobbing and eating tons of ice cream to soothe her wounds. (There’s also a funny little joke with an Amazon delivery man and tons of tissue orders). This all changes when she hears a commotion in her childhood closet at her mother’s house. Upon further inspection, an actual monster scares the daylight out of her. Is Monster (played by Tommy Dewey, who reprises the role in the 2020 short) real? Probably not. There are overtures of them having a history when she was a little girl, and he preferred to try to scare her from under her bed. If anything, Monster is the personification of Laura wanting to stand up for herself against the awfulness committed against her. Thus, in a sitcom and musical light style, the film is the journey of a woman who learns not to be a doormat to jerks.
Tommy Dewey and Melissa Barerra appear in Your Monster by Caroline Lindy, an official selection of the Midnight program at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival. Courtesy of Sundance Institute. Photo by Will Stone.
But Your Monster also has a rom-com formula up its sleeve as well. There’s a little bit of Disney and the 1987 television series Beauty and the Beast elements to the story that are accentuated by the funniest and charm of both Barrera and Dewey. At first, Laura and Monster don’t get along. There are obvious living situations to iron out (particularly his penchant to scare her and ruin things unexpectedly). Things start to settle once they share a common love for Fred Astaire movies and a reading of Shakespeare that suddenly hints at the romance to come. Their dynamic is much of what drives the film’s fairy tale and self-confidence aspect. Much of Your Monster plays like a conventional love triangle drama. Jacob is a walking contradiction as his play draws from this idea of women’s empowerment. Despite that notion, he will trample on everything to get the spotlight.
Things get more complicated when Laura becomes the understudy of the role she was supposed to play in the first place. The person in the lead is a famed actress and a new crush interest of Jacob, Jackie (Meghann Fahy). The dynamic gets dicey as Laura fights with them, severing Jacob’s emotional grip over her. On the other hand, she has Monster that appeals to this hidden reserve of self-worth inside herself, just waiting for Laura to wake up and smell the roses. Given how he treats the women in his life, Jacob’s musical House of Good Women is comical at best. That’s where the revenge aspect of Your Monster in the third act kicks into gear. Throughout the film, there are show tunes and light-hearted montages. When you get to opening night, the tone shifts into a more sinister/get back at all costs mantra. Peering from the outside, you can’t blame Laura for wanting to make Jacob’s life miserable, given the variety of ways he does it to her. Things move on as predictably as one can envision, and the end of Your Monster ends on a note that strips away the ambiguity of its premise a bit. (even if there is some shock value to it).
Who would have thought that the childhood monster spoken about in folklore could set you on a pathway of needed self-refection and be a love interest on the journey? Lindy’s film is undoubtedly hoping you will let yourself indulge in the moment, and Your Monster might have the right ingredients for it to be so.
