--- title: A Monster Calls Offers a Big, Less-Friendly Giant description: Children aren't very good at seeing outside of themselves. If they're doing the work of being children, selfishness comes with the territory--and learning that others... canonical: https://time.com/4623404/a-monster-calls-review/ author: Stephanie Zacharek article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2017-01-05T11:51:47.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-23T02:33:24.499Z article:section: Entertainment og:title: A Monster Calls Offers a Big, Less-Friendly Giant og:description: Children aren't very good at seeing outside of themselves. If they're doing the work of being children, selfishness comes with the territory--and learning that others... og:url: https://time.com/4623404/a-monster-calls-review/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt610bfd7b76e8e162/6988b4792dce017da89ebd68/a-monster-calls_3xcens.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: 09395-joseharo.NEF og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: A Monster Calls Offers a Big, Less-Friendly Giant twitter:description: Children aren't very good at seeing outside of themselves. If they're doing the work of being children, selfishness comes with the territory--and learning that others... twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt610bfd7b76e8e162/6988b4792dce017da89ebd68/a-monster-calls_3xcens.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # _A Monster Calls_ Offers a Big, Less-Friendly Giant  by [Stephanie Zacharek](https://time.com/author/stephanie-zacharek/)  ## Stephanie Zacharek Film Critic Jan 5, 2017 11:51 AM UTC  09395-joseharo.NEF 09395-joseharo.NEFJose Haro—Apaches Entertainment  by [Stephanie Zacharek](https://time.com/author/stephanie-zacharek/)  ## Stephanie Zacharek Film Critic Jan 5, 2017 11:51 AM UTC Children aren’t very good at seeing outside of themselves. If they’re doing the work of being children, selfishness comes with the territory–and learning that others feel things keenly too is where adulthood begins. That’s the idea captured in _A Monster Calls_, in which a gnarly treelike beast (voiced by Liam Neeson) pays a series of visits to 12-year-old Conor (played by Lewis MacDougall, a young actor with quizzical, perceptive eyes). Conor is going through a rough patch: He’s bullied at school. He dislikes his uptight grandmother (Sigourney Weaver, left), whom he sees as increasingly intrusive. And his mother (Felicity Jones), who is raising him by herself, has been ill for a long time and isn’t getting better. Conor’s monster, a surly, growling personification of childhood anger, tells the boy three morally ambiguous stories–and asks him to cap them off with one honest story of his own. _A Monster Calls_–directed by J.A. Bayona and adapted by Patrick Ness from his own novel–is meticulously and sensitively made, though its best moments may be the lovely but intense watercolor-toned interstitial animated sequences that illustrate the monster’s thorny spiritual allegories, cartoons for grownups rather than for little ones. But then _A Monster Calls_ isn’t so much for kids as it is for grownups. It’s a reminder of the time when we, too, thought only of ourselves–and found it too much to bear. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4623404/a-monster-calls-review/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4623404/a-monster-calls-review/"},"headline":"A Monster Calls Offers a Big, Less-Friendly Giant","datePublished":"2017-01-05T11:51:47.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-23T02:33:24.499Z","description":"Children aren't very good at seeing outside of themselves. 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