'It starts like so many stories: With a boy, too old be a kid, too young to be a man … and a nightmare.'

“A Monster Calls” is a challenging meditation on grief from the perspective of a British ’tween.

Grim children’s tale has inventive visuals and doesn’t shy away from its difficult subject matter

Read Empire's review of A Monster Calls.

A Monster Calls: EW review

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A boy worried for his cancer-stricken mother (Felicity Jones) is consoled by a giant tree (Liam Neeson) in 'A Monster Calls,' directed by J.A. Bayona ('The I...

J.A. Bayona's new film brings Patrick Ness' novel to vivid life.

From its elegant title to its unexpectedly edgy tone, "A Monster Calls" makes its own way.

J. A. Bayona’s movie delivers its meaning repeatedly; its lessons are missing only the chalkboard and pointer.

Screenwriter Patrick Ness adapts his YA novel about a monster who helps a boy deal with his mother's illness. The result is a film that confronts grief in a ...

Liam Neeson gives voice to a giant walking tree monster in “A Monster Calls,” an emotional and dark fairy tale from Spanish filmmaker Juan Bayona (“The...

A 12-year-old boy develops a friendship with a fantastical tree-being (voiced by Liam Neeson) in this wrenching magical-realist drama about love and mortalit...

Liam Neeson is the voice of a giant tree that helps a child with a vivid imagination through difficult times.

We all have monsters - dark impulses that dwell in the deepest recesses of our minds, occasionally forcing their way into our nightmares or impinging on our ...

A metaphorical allegory of childhood, illness, death, and grief. And an often very powerful film.

Movies, even fairy tale adaptations, have taken to coddling kids — fretting more about offending than worrying if they’re challenging. “A Monster Calls...

'A Monster Calls' turns its boy-meets-tree story into a magical tale of grief and loss – Peter Travers on why this fantasy will leave you in tears.

...because therapists don’t pay home visits. Liam Neeson gets transmogrified into a weirdly muscular tree-man summoned by the tortured psyche of young Con...

Dir. J.A. Bayona. US/Spain, 2016. 108 mins

Read our A Monster Calls review from TIFF. Liam Neeson voices a tree monster called upon to help a boy grieving for his dying mother (Felicity Jones).

A tree's spirit comes to life – with some help from Liam Neeson – in this moving coming-of-age story.

Tragedy can be magical through the eyes of movie children, from primal tears for Old Yeller to wartime fears fantasized in Pan's Labyrinth.

J.A. Bayona’s tear-jerking fantasy film doesn’t come close to earning its inevitably devastating emotional climax. 

When your author and illustrator both win Carnegie and Greenaway Medals for the same book, you can bet Hollywood will come knocking. Even though the producti...

The film hopes that Lewis MacDougall’s committed performance and Liam Neeson’s mighty timbre will be enough to carry it – an unfair and selfish decisio...

This family weepie about a boy who imagines a monster to cope with the impending loss of his mother tugs at the heartstrings and aims for wonder – but stil...

Before “A Monster Calls” powerfully overflows its banks with deeply felt tides of emotion. Before you are trying to keep watching the screen through eyes...

J.A. Bayona’s new film uses fantasy to reckon with unbearable tragedy

J.A. Bayona's fable aims for "Pan's Labyrinth" territory, and leaves viewers in tears

Children aren't very good at seeing outside of themselves. If they're doing the work of being children, selfishness comes with the territory--and learning th...

The power of the imagination is celebrated in A Monster Calls, a beautifully made film about an unbearably sad subject.

Felicity Jones is a dying mom and Liam Neeson's a tree in coming-of-age tearjerker.

J.A. Bayona's gothic fable about a grieving boy and the tree monster who comes to his rescue is too dark for kids, too obvious for grown-ups

It’s like a darker, sadder Inside Out.

A Monster Calls gets off to a rocky start, but once Neeson's talking tree starts spouting tales of wisdom, everything tightens as the tears start flowing.