A Monster Calls

Much digital artistry has gone into bringing Patrick Ness's award-winning children's book to the screen. Lewis MacDougall plays Conor, a sensitive, bullied 12-year-old, who must cope with a terminally ill mother (Felicity Jones), an absent father (Toby Kebbell) and a cold grandmother (Sigourney Weaver) in a Brontëan northern English town. An ancient yew tree (voiced by Liam Neeson) creaks to life in a neighbouring graveyard and offers three parables in exchange for a reluctant Conor's own. These exquisitely animated fables offer welcome but fleeting respite from the apocalyptically roiling, corporeal escalations of this Freudian journey through grief. While hard-going and gloomy, the film never patronises its audience, and Ness's own hand on the screenplay ensures it retains its hardy emotional core.