It seems like every week, I see another bad sequel or remake or adaptation of a TV series or some other rehash of a concept that wore out its welcome some time in the 20th century. So, it comes as a bit of a shock to see Colossal, a movie that manages to be both an homage to a beloved B-movie genre and a highly imaginative flight of fancy. I would be prepared to cut such a movie some slack merely because of its originality. But, like other stunningly inventive works like Memento and Frailty, Colossal succeeds not merely on its own terms but in comparison with most other movies we are likely to see this year.
Anne Hathaway stars in Colossal as Gloria, a human trainwreck of an alcoholic who has lost her New York City job and just been tossed out by her live-in boyfriend Tim (Dan Stevens), who has grown tired of her drinking, partying, and lying. She packs up her meager possessions and goes back to her suburban hometown, where she takes up residence in her late parents’ largely empty home. One day, while trying to drag an air mattress home to use as a bed, she is spotted by an old acquaintance Oscar (Jason Sudeikis), who grew up with her.
Oscar gives Gloria a ride and helps provide some furniture for her. He also takes her to the bar that he now owns, one he inherited from his father, and soon gives her a job as a waitress. Needless to say, her new job doesn’t help Gloria’s drinking problem. Her life settles into a routine that includes lots of late night after hours drinking sessions at the bar with Oscar and a couple of his buddies, Garth (Tim Blake Nelson) and Joel (Austin Stowell). While walking home one morning following an all-night binge, Gloria wanders through an elementary school playground. This seemingly innocuous event has drastic repercussions, because, at the very same time, a giant Godzilla-like monster appears in Seoul, South Korea.
Gloria soon figures out that she is the reason for the monster’s appearance. For reasons never quite made clear in Colossal, if Gloria is standing in that playground at one precise time in the morning (see clip below), the monster appears in nighttime Seoul at that very same instant. Further, Gloria is able to control the monster’s movements, which mimic hers. And, when she tells her drinking companions about this phenomenon, they pay a visit to the playground as well, where Oscar discovers that he can cause a giant robot to appear and move it around.
I don’t feel bad about revealing this much of the movie’s plot because the trailer of Colossal has pretty much given this away. Beyond that, however, I would not want to spoil the audience’s enjoyment as writer/director Nacho Vigalando plays with our expectations and tweaks genres in enjoyable ways. One obvious example is his homage to the cheesy Japanese monster movies exemplified by Godzilla. The low budget of Colossal limits the special effects that Vigalando could employ. Rather than try for some semblance of realism, however, Vigalando instead tries to emulate the cheese factor in those other movies and succeeds admirably. So, we get a few crowd shots, a few close-ups of the monster, and a lot of running and screaming. The end result is special effects that are far from what we’ve come to expect in the horror and science fiction movies of today but which, on the other hand, are somehow comforting.
Colossal starts out as a standard romantic comedy, with a kooky but likable heroine reinventing herself and pulling herself out the enormous hole she dug for herself. But alcoholism is no laughing matter, either in real life, or, as becomes increasingly obvious, in this movie either. There’s an incredible sadness bordering on outright pathos in Gloria’s downward spiral, especially when she realizes that her new job isn’t a lifeline but an anchor, making it all too easy for her to fall back into bad ways.
Anne Hathaway delivers one of her best performances in years, a performance that might have garnered her some end-of-the-year awards attention if Colossal wasn’t such a quirky movie. Hathaway isn’t afraid to make herself look bad here, which makes her eventual transformation that much more effective. Colossal also features an impressive change-of-pace performance from Jason Sudeikis. As the movie goes on, the audience realizes that there is a lot more to his character than the “aw shucks” nice guy persona he has inevitably projected in his post-SNL roles.
Colossal represents the first English-language production for Vigalando, whose best-known previous work was a quirky time travel thriller appropriately called Timecrimes. Colossal is a far more complex film, one that changes direction about three different times along the way, the last of which proves to be remarkably subtle. But no matter in which direction Colossal turns, the characters stay credible. In particular, his depiction of Gloria and her drinking buddies at the bar is quite believable. Unlike most films about alcoholism, in which the characters are either struggling with recovery or totally broken down, these characters are functioning. They go home after a night of binging and then start over the next day. However, there isn’t much enjoyment in their lives, and even a sexual encounter proves more a matter of convenience than either love or passion.
It’s nearly impossible for a filmmaker to go out and consciously create a cult classic. Instead, films like The Rocky Horror Picture Show just seem to happen because they strike a responsive chord with the audience. But I’m going to go out on a limb and predict that Colossal will achieve midnight movie cult status in the not-too-distant future. It has that same bizarre quality that audiences who experience it will love. Unlike most cult films, however, Colossal just happens to be a very good, highly imaginative film that blends an outrageous fantasy notion with some highly credible dysfunctional personalities. And, at the center of the film, like the monster in Seoul, is an excellent performance by Anne Hathaway. From both an artistic and a crowd pleasing standpoint, Colossal is a colossal success.
