Weaving together unlikely subject matter, the Anne Hathaway and Jason Sudeikis-led Colossal is perhaps the most audacious effort yet from writer/director Nacho Vigalondo - which says something off the back of his time travel, alien, and online voyeurism pics.
Principally, it's a film about Gloria (Hathaway), a woman returning to
her small American hometown and confronting her unhealthy relationships with men and booze. And then, half a world away, there's also an enormous monster terrorising Seoul - somehow linked to Gloria and her actions.
Colossal is at turns comic, darkly dramatic, occasionally uncomfortably threatening - and that's just the non-monster stuff.
Vigalondo displays a keen sense for depicting alcoholism, one that doesn't oversell the pathos, and the same can be said for his cast. Hathaway's range is on show here as she treads a fine line between funny and miserable, hopeless yet capable of change, while Sudeikis, playing a recently reunited childhood friend, serves up a superbly evolving performance as he peels away the more complex layers to the initially easy-going Oscar.
And, in an often-amusing supporting role as Gloria's recent ex, Dan Stevens continues to put distance between himself and his former life as Downton Abbey's Matthew Crawley.
