Monolith

Here's The 4K Lowedown on "Monolith" (R - 2022 - VOD)

Genre: Drama/Sci-Fi

My Score: 6.8 Cast=5 Acting=8 Trailer=7 Ending=5 Story=8 Visual=6 Direct=8 Sound=7 Genre=5 Sub-genre=9

A headstrong journalist whose investigative podcast uncovers a strange artifact, an alien conspiracy, and the lies at the heart of her own story.

"You have to stop what you're doing...you are in danger." What starts out slow begins to build...in intensity and suspense. When the sci-fi stuff started to kick in, I was fully on board...I couldn't wait for the ending. I think this just went a little too long and that caused the ending to be a little flat. This is available to rent on Prime for 3.99 and I feel this is worth a watch. I'll leave it up to you if you want to rent it or wait for it to appear on a streaming service.

A strong willed, but seemingly on the way out journalist runs a podcast covering unsolved mysteries from her parents' lavish, isolated home. When she receives an anonymous email she follows it up and is told of a strange black brick that had altered the life of an ex maid. Investigating further she discovers an art dealer who has acquired a few of the bricks and had them scanned - he sends the results to the journalist. As the investigation progresses further and more people contact her, she begins to realise that she may in fact be directly involved in the mystery herself.

A tense and interesting low budget independent sci-fi thriller filmed entirely in the house and with just one actor seen, the unnamed journalist, played convincingly by Lily Sullivan. The investigative element involving interviewing various affected characters over the phone is well done and is actually the best part, as the possible ways in which the brick might be affecting people slowly emerges leading in turn to how the mystery might be directly involving the journalist. It is sci-fi and inevitably it brings the threads together with a bit of out there weirdness, but it's well enough handled and overall this is a fascinating and tense 94 minutes.

Can I honestly urge you to put aside an hour and a half of your life to watch this? No, I don't think so. There's nothing wrong with this film. I am old, and remember radio plays (honest, they were entertaining, and tested one's imagination) and this feels like one of those. There's nothing 'cinematic' about it. It has one idea, and does it quite well. Should you be stuck inside on a rainy day and you've done all your chores, go ahead. You won't regret it. But going for a walk, tidying your house, finishing those jobs are more important.

Well acted, well presented, nicely structured. A good ending (if you've been paying attention to the hints).

Monolith is a tricky one, an eerie one location thriller that tries a pretty ballsy bait and switch manoeuvre with its ending that I'm not altogether sure about being effective or not. A semi-famous radio journalist (Lily Sullivan) from a wealthy family sits alone in a fancy secluded manor, doing interviews over the phone for her podcast that probes into various obscure conspiracy theories. Her latest fixation is on some shred of evidence over the years that objects of alien origin have somehow made their way into human households, and she tries to track down accounts that back this up. What she really finds is some half forgotten secret closer to home that might even relate to her own past and this is where the film attempts a prompt and jarring turn right into left field that, although fascinating, grounds what could have been a spooky extraterrestrial horror experience into something very, how should I put it, socioeconomic and decidedly "of this world." It's a shame because I felt like the former option would have made for the better, stronger film. In any case it's still creepy, atmospheric, well acted and makes good use of its single location trappings.

Monolith borrows the core idea of Tony Burgess's novel Pontypool Changes Everything - as filtered and focused through the film adaptation, Pontypool (which, I would argue is better than the novel, which is needlessly overwritten and self-consciously haphazard) -and takes it in a very different direction. To be more specific about Monolith's story beyond what you've read in Letterboxd or IMDb plot summaries would spoil things. I've read some reviews that don't seem to like the ending, but I think these viewers have missed the point of the movie. It is heavily thematic, rooted in the sins of the past, whether terrible things thought or terrible things done, and the suppression of the related guilt. In one sense, everything in Monolith is overtly symbolic in how it relates to our world outside of the movie; but, within the movie's own world, there is no symbolism and suppressed guilt is literalized, shockingly so in at least one scene, in which a quotation from The Merchant of Venice mentioned at the beginning - "The truth will out" - is physically manifested. In the movie's world each person has their own hidden language - hidden even from the individual them self, or maybe hidden by them.

Well, I am being pretty opaque to avoid spoilers. The movie makes perfect sense within the above context and turns out to be very clever. About 2/3 of the way through I thought the movie was losing itself in a subplot, but no, everything that happens is integral to the story and themes, and essential to where the story ends up. Also impressive is the sustained sense of mystery and suspense, given that there is only one setting and that only one character appears outside of some very brief video snippets, texts, emails, and phone calls. The lead actress has to carry 90% of the movie.

Monolith is an impressive movie. It isn't as opaque or inconclusive has some viewers have said. Being very easy to miss amid the thousands of direct to streaming movies that drop each year, Monolith is worth seeking out for fans of sci-fi drama / suspense. It would make a great double feature with Pontypool.