Monster
When a mother suspects her son's teacher of hurting him, the same events are retold from three viewpoints, revealing a hidden truth between two boys.
Cannes Film Festival, Best Screenplay, 2023
A single mother becomes convinced that her young son's teacher has mistreated him, and she confronts the school. The film then retells the same stretch of events from the perspectives of the mother, the teacher, and the child, and each retelling changes the meaning of what came before, opening onto the secret inner world shared by two boys.
The layered structure exposes how adult assumptions can misread a child, and how shame, fear, and an emerging queer attachment can hide in plain sight. It is a study of childhood interiority and of how much of a child's real life stays unseen by the adults around them. It won the award for Best Screenplay at the Cannes Film Festival in 2023.
Director
Hirokazu Kore-eda
Hirokazu Kore-eda is a Japanese film director, born in 1962. He is known for quiet, observational dramas about ordinary family life, often watching how parents and children shape one another over time. Several of his films weigh biological ties against the bonds people choose, and return to memory, absence, and grief. Shoplifters (2018), about a makeshift household living on the margins, won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival.
Details
- 2023
- Japan
- Japanese
- Film