Monster

I would like to first get this out of the way. With this being Koreeda's most popular and watched movie to date, with everybody praising it, I think, as a Koreeda film, it isn't his best and is a bit overrated. This goes to show just how good a filmmaker Koreeda really is. I think his other films, mostly Shoplifters, After Life, and Our Little Sister, do a better job of telling a narrative family drama like this. I really had sky-high expectations for this film, and felt a little bit disappointed as I thought this film would be better than After Life. But it is still a very good film. I hope this film is used as a gateway or rabbit hole into Koreeda's entire filmography, because it really only gets better from here. That out of the way, this film felt like Koreeda's highest quality in terms of picture. It is super clear and clean; you can tell he finally got the biggest budget he so deserved. But for me, I felt like this took a little bit of the charm of Koreeda's older films from the 2000s til the 2010s, because it felt so simple and indie. To me, that is what Koreeda truly represents in my eyes. I thought that the multiple perspectives of each character were a very interesting take and were a welcome change for a Koreeda film. His films are usually very linear and straightforward; this one was the opposite of that. The writing was very good for this sort of thing and wasn't very confusing at all somehow. It really was paced very well. The actual story is so heartbreaking, but at the same time, I didn't feel fully invested in the story like his other films for some reason. Maybe because I was tired, but it just didn't hook me as Shoplifters did. My favorite story element was definitely the whole thing with the Sensei. I really felt bad for him and what he had to go through. Earlier in the film, I kept saying, "What the fuck is wrong with the school?" And then they show what is wrong with the school. That was pretty funny. Pretty good Koreeda film, but far from his best.