A giant monster in Seoul is actually a metaphor for a toxic friendship.
In short: In the 2016 film Colossal, an unemployed writer discovers she can remotely control a reptilian creature terrorizing Seoul. The catch? Her movements are tied to her own struggles with alcoholism and a manipulative childhood friend who manifests as a giant robot. It is a genre-bending exploration of power and self-destruction.
Directed by Nacho Vigalondo, Colossal follows Gloria, played by Anne Hathaway, who returns to her hometown after a personal breakdown. She reconnects with Oscar, a childhood friend who runs his late father's bar. The film’s central conceit—that Gloria’s physical actions in a local playground at 8:05 am manifest as a monster in South Korea—serves as a surreal lens through which to examine their deteriorating relationship. As Gloria attempts to address her alcoholism, she realizes Oscar is using his own giant robot avatar to lash out at the world, fueled by his deep-seated self-hatred and jealousy.
The production faced significant legal hurdles before filming began on October 18, 2015. Toho, the Japanese studio behind Godzilla, sued the producers for unauthorized use of the iconic monster's image in promotional materials. A settlement was reached in October 2015, allowing the project to proceed. When creating the monster, Vigalondo opted against motion capture, instead using footage of Hathaway’s performance as a reference for the CG team. This choice was intended to ensure the creature felt like a character within the film’s unique genre-hopping framework, which Hathaway herself compared to Being John Malkovich.
Upon its release, the film garnered critical acclaim for its originality, holding an 82% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Critics like Peter Travers praised it as unmissable, while others, such as Mark Jenkins, noted that the film’s tone occasionally wavered. Despite the positive reception, the film struggled at the box office, grossing $4.5 million worldwide against a $15 million production budget. Nevertheless, it remains a distinct entry in modern cinema, blending the scale of a monster movie with the intimate, often painful, dynamics of human manipulation and recovery.
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Sources
- Summary by Intellect · source: Colossal (film)
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