Monster

the choice to make this movie appear as a thriller in the first three acts as we watch the events unfold through the eyes of the adults works in the latter part's favor. as the adults we don't know what's happening to the kids, and as the viewer we wait for the supposed monster to come out, expecting it to either be the principal, teacher, or - in a shocking turn of events - the son. the not knowing works because of the adults lack of understanding of how the childrens world works. why would a friend give you one of his own shoes without the full pair? why would your son cut his hair out of nowhere? and what does it mean to have a pig brain? in the first act, it's easy to think that the threat is a foreign body, a third that interrupted the peaceful life of mother and son; the monster must be an outsider, somebody who filled her son's head with thoughts of pig brains that have now made him a stranger. and you are just a mother, you are not with him 24 hours anymore - which is where the teacher comes in, the man that knows the version of the son you don't. and while the relationship is not wholly the same, it's one of teacher and student; the fundamentals are there as he serves to educate and guide your son into becoming a functional person of society. from the beginning, the mother makes it obvious that she distrusts him, that he's obviously guilty of something, the crime of making her son withdraw from the world and change. but it's not that. and if it's not that, then what are we scared of, what's this 'monster' that has left her son in such disarray? stop wait i ran out of thoughts. life forever changed. 100/10.