Colossal (2016) , R
Directed by Nacho Vigalondo
Starring Anne Hathaway, Jason Sudeikis, Dan Stevens, Austin Stowell, Tim Blake Nelson
Rating: 
Reviewed by Xavier Emaka
The monster genre is ever expanding and colossal looks to add a new twist to it. This movie has taken more than six months to get its official release with its rights bouncing between studio owners. Hopefully, moviegoers will warm up to it.
Gloria (Anne Hathaway) has let her drinking spiral out of control. As a full time drunkard, her writing career has gone down the drain. Eventually even her boyfriend gives up on her and her destructive habits and kicks her out of their apartment. Now jobless and homeless, she moves back to her hometown where she meets Oscar, a childhood friend who still carries a torch for her.
Oscar conveniently owns a bar and lets her stay at his place and gives her a part time job. So not only does she have access to money, but somewhere she can get free liquor and drink as much as she wants.
She falls asleep on a park bench one day and when she wakes up she hears that a Kaiju monster attacked Seoul. She, like most people, follows the story, but with time realizes that it mimics her behavior. She discovers that there is a big problem with the Kaiju aside from the fact it appears and disappears at random.
What’s so good about Colossal is the inner meaning. The monsters in many films are warnings about large scale problems such as pollution, nuclear testing or animal testing. However, the monster in Colossal is somebody’s very own private problems and a mirror of how much one person can wreak havoc in society through their ignorant, self destructive spiral.
Gloria troes to make up for the problems that she causes when she realizes that she is the kaiju, but Oscar’s own monster comes out to play after he discovers that in spite letting her stay at his place, she seems to be interested in somebody else.
The language gets pretty strong but there is something to be said for someone willing to try when they realize that their actions impact others.
Hathaway makes a great self-destructive writer, but Jason Sudeikis stole the show. Its grittiness is at a personal level and really shows how people can destroy the lives of others as they nurse their addictions whether those addictions are drugs or even other people.
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