Monster (2023)

Monster is special because it turns a familiar school-incident mystery into something richer: a quietly gripping thriller of perspective, where each new angle doesn’t just “solve” the situation but deepens your understanding of how fear, love, and assumptions distort the truth. Hirokazu Kore-eda directs with his trademark compassion, letting tension build in small looks and half-spoken sentences, while Yuji Sakamoto’s screenplay reshapes the same events with such elegance that your sympathies keep shifting in real time. The performances—especially from Sakura Ando and the two young leads—feel lived-in and heartbreaking without ever pleading for tears, giving the film a humane pulse beneath its suspense. It’s not for viewers who want a tidy, twisty whodunit or easy villains, but if you’re open to a mystery that lands like a moral reckoning, Monster is the kind of movie that stays in your mind long after the credits.

Monster is clearly trying to be a humane, Rashomon-style mystery about how adults misread children and how institutions protect themselves, and when it clicks, it’s quietly devastating. The catch is that it takes a very measured, repetitive route to get there, revisiting events from different angles in a way that can feel calculated and a bit drawn out if you want a tight thriller. Some plot turns may strike you as more engineered than organic, and the “mystery” tension is less about twists than about patiently reframing what you thought you knew. If you’re up for a slow-burn drama with strong performances and a tender emotional core, it’s rewarding; if you’re expecting propulsive suspense or clean answers, this may test your patience.