He plays the piano. He loves musical theater. He’s a great dancer. He’s a shaggy-haired Yeti-esque monster who lives in Melissa Barrera’s closet. This is the bare bones of the delightful “anti-romantic” rom-com Your Monster, which straddles the gray areas between horror movie, romance, and musical, all loosely knit together by the catharsis that comes from watching women behaving badly. Hitting theaters Oct. 25, it’s a monster-human romance with a take-no-prisoners flair.
Laura Franco (Barrera of Scream fame) was about to have everything she wanted: a talented playwright boyfriend, a starring role in a new musical, and a lifelong career as a singer that would grant her the fame and fortune she deserves. But then, a surprise cancer diagnosis leads to a lengthy hospital stay, her boyfriend breaks up with her, and, though the treatment goes well and she’s soon discharged, she returns home feeling bereft and uninspired. Things can’t seem to get any worse, and then she discovers an exceedingly rude monster (Casual‘s Tommy Dewey) living in her closet, who would much rather have her home to himself. Laura is given two weeks. After that, she’d better find a new place to live, or the monster, named Monster, will do what monsters do.
On its surface, Your Monster would seem to be governed by the rules of the enemies-to-lovers plot. Newly single woman in need of inspiration finds love in the most unexpected of places, and together our new couple learn and grow and change each other for the better. Laura and Monster bond over their love for musical theater, and when Laura attempts to restart her life where she left off, Monster encourages her to assert herself. The movie continues to follow the formula for a little while, until things take a bit of a turn—though that turn doesn’t fully rear its head until Your Monster’s final moments. Instead of “fixing” the heroine, this movie’s romantic lead makes her worse, in a fun way.
There’s an obvious metaphorical angle that Your Monster fully embraces, often suggesting, in a Jungian sort of way, that these two characters are the psychological manifestations of one mind. Laura’s timidity is countered by Monster’s aggression; Monster’s selfishness is softened by Laura’s generosity. Like the perfect romantic couple, they complement and balance each other, but Monster, being a monster, is always pushing Laura to do more, to be louder, meaner, scarier. He is the id to Laura’s superego. It’s the logical next step of the motivational feminist “lean in” rhetoric. Don’t be afraid, especially in the cutthroat world of off-Broadway theater, to carve yourself a place at the table. Emphasis on carve.
The movie constantly finds ways to poke holes in the pattern it’s pretending to ape, and the semi-toxic, semi-balanced relationship between its two main characters is only one of those. There’s a maturity to the script that never lets Laura off the hook, despite the traumas of her past threatening to creep into her present. The mid-movie addition of Meghann Fahy (bringing in her layered depiction of femininity from The White Lotus) as a deconstruction of the “rival woman” presents itself like a flashing billboard, telling the audience to constantly expect the unexpected.
Within stories about women taking charge, there’s always the additional wrinkle of how much is too much. How loud is too loud? How aggressive is too aggressive? There’s usually a point at which the protagonist must be chastised for going too hard, too fast. Your Monster, on the other hand, supports the monstrous femininity that similar stories tend to caution against, allowing its main character to channel the support she feels in this strange new relationship into a newer, wilder, more untamed self. By embracing her monster, Laura discovers that there’s more to life than being nice. Just don’t get on her bad side.
