Colossal: Externalizing the Internal

[spb_column width="1/1" el_position="first last"] [spb_text_block pb_margin_bottom="no" pb_border_bottom="no" width="1/1" el_position="first last"]   By, Jacob Krueger [/spb_text_block] [/spb_column] [divider type="standard" text="Go to top" full_width="no" width="1/1" el_position="first last"] [fullwidth_text alt_background="none" width="1/1" el_position="first last"] Colossal: Externalizing the Internal Podcast Transcript: If you haven’t seen Colossal yet, this is definitely a movie that you need to check out. Because whether you love genre-bending monster movies or not, Colossal is a film that shows you just how much you can get away with if you are willing to trust yourself.   This is an example of a movie that simply should not work, so let me give you the premise really quickly. And for those of you who haven’t seen it yet, it’s important to understand that this is not some experimental art film. This is a mostly naturalistic character-driven drama about alcoholism.   Except instead of exploring alcoholism in a traditional dramatic format, it explores it by mashing up B-Movie, sci-fi elements, with a mostly naturalistic script that seems like it’s going in a romantic-comedy-with-some-dramatic-elements, direction.   In the simplest terms. it’s the story of Gloria, who is a raging alcoholic, total mess of a character, who seems to have some strange connection to a Godzilla monster that keeps on attacking Seoul, Korea every time she gets drunk.   As if that weren’t hard enough, this movie seems to break pretty much every other rule as well.   For example, the common wisdom is that you’re supposed to have a likeable main character in your movie, but this main character is far from likeable. Her alcoholism is so out of control that we find ourselves actually sympathizing with her nasty ex-boyfriend.   This is a character who uses people, who is irresponsible, who is out of control. At the beginning of the movie, gets kicked out of her boyfriend’s apartment and is forced to return home to the abandoned house of her parents.   Arriving there, she meets Oscar, played by Jason Sudeikis, a guy who has always been in love with her since they grew up as kids, who keeps showering her with gifts, who gives her a job at his bar, who tries to do anything he can to be nice to her… (Even if there is something that feels just a little bit stalkery about him, just maybe a little bit too nice, maybe just a little bit controlling).   We feel like we’re going in a Romantic Comedy direction-- like the film is making a promise to us. And again, the common wisdom is that once you start to to set the rules of a Romantic Comedy genre, that’s what where we’re supposed to go! We’re supposed to watch the story of two troubled souls coming together. We’re supposed to watch this story of the guy who always loved the girl, finally finding a way to connect. Of two broken souls healing each other. We’re supposed to have a happy ending, right?   Mild spoilers ahead...   Instead Gloria responds mostly by playing mind games with Oscar. By taking advantage of what at least at the time seems like is generosity.   She does this by attempting to seduce his best friend Joel, even knowing how Oscar feels about her. And she does it again much later in the film when she shows up at his bar with her ex-boyfriend, Tim, even knowing what that’s likely to mean for Oscar.   But of course, Oscar’s not really such a nice guy either. He’s not gonna play the likeable, romantic, comedy role that we expect him to play. Instead, he turns out to be the real villain of the piece. Whereas Gloria turns out to be the real hero.   And though we start off on a Romantic Comedy trajectory, we soon find ourselves going in a much darker direction.   On the playground of their childhoods a battle is playing out, a battle not for love, but for control-- a battle between sobriety an...