A Monster Calls (2016)

IMDb plot summary: A boy seeks the help of a tree monster to cope with his single mother's terminal illness.
Directed by J.A. Bayona. Starring Lewis MacDougall, Sigourneey Weaver, Felicity Jones, and Liam Neeson.

I just finished reading this book, so I tossed the movie into my watchlist. And honestly I think reading the book first helped a lot. I liked but didn't love the book, but that's because I think this story demanded to be portrayed visually. The image of the yew tree is so striking, and the animation portions telling the tree's three stories brought them to life so much more than reading them did. And knowing the narrative trajectory of the book, I found myself tearing up at moments that weren't even particularly sad, just because I knew the significance of that moment going forward. And then when it hit, it hit HARD for me and I just sobbed my way through the final half hour or so. Performances here are lovely, even Felicity Jones (who I typically find bland at best and irritating at worst), and overall the film just wormed its way deep into my heart. It's exactly what I love from my genre fiction/magic realism -- fantastical things that highlight and explore a facet of the human experience. And this does it beautifully.

How it entered my Flickchart:
A Monster Calls > Waxwork
A Monster Calls > Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day
A Monster Calls > The Maltese Falcon (1941)
A Monster Calls > Jerry Maguire
A Monster Calls < Ordinary People
A Monster Calls > In Bruges
A Monster Calls > The Terminator
A Monster Calls > Emma (1996)
A Monster Calls > Desk Set
A Monster Calls < Catch Me If You Can
A Monster Calls > All the President's Men
Final spot: #103 out of 3173.