Review: Anne Hathaway is "Colossal"
Saturday, April 8, 2017 at 3:44PM by Jorge Molina
As much as her career seems to have been engraved by "light" and "fluffy" material like The Princess Diaries or The Devil Wears Prada, and despite the bubbly and eager-to-please persona that she has become infamous for, Anne Hathaway is no stranger to playing characters plagued by demons: recovering addict, martyrized mother, troubled wife, woman with degenerative disease. She’s always had the outstanding capacity to portray a complex darkness within.
Colossal brings this into the light like no movie she’s done before...
After all, the premise of the movie is the very idea of Gloria’s (Hathaway) internal demons materializing into a kaiju-like monster that wreaks havoc in Seoul.
The story is a simple metaphor cleverly taken to a cinematic scale that ambitiously combines psychological drama, magical realism, and dark comedy. That mix does not always blend well together; the attempt to make a small character drama work also as a large-scale disaster movie feels muddled at times. But it is incredibly effective when it touches on its emotional and thematic core: a woman grappling with the chaos she brings around her, whether it is her small hometown, or the terrified streets of South Korea.
The performances do the very tricky job of selling the hard-to-buy premise, and they do it well. Hathaway is given the richest material she’s had in a long time, and achieves that sweet Acting Spot of losing herself in enjoying the performance.
[SPOILER ALERT] There’s one particular scene, in which Jason Sudeikis’ Oscar (after realizing he can also conjure up a monster) stomps through a park to Hathaway’s terror. She gives emotional gravitas to a moment (and an entire film) that, out of context, would have been quite silly.
Sudeikis is the secret weapon of the movie, Gloria’s childhood friend who at first becomes a solace when she moves back, but slowly turns into a literal and metaphorical monster of his own. He is one of the most hate-able film characters I’ve seen in a while, and adds real, life-threatening and heavily emotional stakes to the movie. He and Anne play very nicely against one another; you can feel their toxic co-dependence. [/SPOILER]
Colossal is a smart movie that aims for so much more than it actually accomplishes, but its bravery to tell a specific message in a different way is genuinely refreshing. If it weren’t such an unusual premise to get past, it would garner more attention than it probably will. I hope I'm proven wrong. But, just like Anne herself, it should not be boiled down to what it seems to be; there is a compelling complexity and darkness underneath.
Reader Comments (8)
I want to see this as I just like the idea of Anne being a kaiju.
Happy for Anne that this is good. It seems many people are calling her performance in this her best since Rachel Getting Married. I really wish she won the Oscar for that.
I've always been a Hatha-supporter and I'm so glad she's in something good again.
Really excited for this but wish you would not have mentioned the plot spoilers in regards to the Sudeikes character. Still, love Hathaway to pieces!
Shouldn't you have avoided a HUGE SPOILER in the review? Thank you for spoiling a likely key plot point of the film without a warning Jorge. In no moment of any review of this film, nor trailer, I've been hinted the twist, but in this one.
Hathaway as a person/celebrity is annoying as fuck but she's a great actress. I feel the same way about some other hated celebrities (e.g. Gibson). People always confuse the two but all that matters is what is up there on screen IMO.
Note that her performances never get the hate as they are good/great. And she looks like a lot of fun in this. Looking forward to it!
I think the problem is that a lot of the ink (not all of it, but a lot of it) that might go to something like this on nerd sites is salivating over the, frankly, very similar (and certainly infinitely more successful AT IT) video game, Persona 5.
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