Who knew the apocalypse could be warm and funny?
They are not, as a general rule, things you would normally associate with the end of the world which is characterised by lots of running, screaming, death, destruction or in the case of epidemics and such, lots of deadly, infectiously awful silence.
But laughs and relational engagement? Not so much.
And yet, rather delightfully that is what Love and Monsters, newly arrived on Netflix after online release last year in a small number of countries, delivers and in monster-smashing spades.
Directed by Michael Matthews to a beautifully-judged screenplay by Brian Duffield and Matthew Robinson, Love and Monsters is that rare end-of-the-world cinematic effort that actually brings something new to the human civilisation in tatters table.
Much of that refreshing originality comes from the way in which the film approaches its material, happy to have a great deal of fun with a very bleak premise and managing to do so with a surprising degree of affecting humanity, rich insights about the human condition and sharp observations about the passage of time and how we will often hang onto the past as if it’s a vibrantly alive part of our present if it remains our sole link to everything we once had or knew.
It’s a tricky balance whose resonant could be an unsightly narrative mess were it not for a script that adroitly shifts between hilarious and moving with a pleasing elegance, and a lead actor in Dylan O’Brien who as Joel Dawson effortlessly embodies a survivor who is both accepting of his current reality and yet understandably grief-stricken about it.
He is now 24 years old, and has spent, along with the small rump of surviving humans, living underground in silos, caves etc to escape the monsters that now roam the earth, devouring Homo Sapiens wherever they find them.
The science here is gleefully rubbery, but unless your life’s work is studying the effects of chemical compounds on cold-blooded lifeforms you are are unlikely to be too troubled by that.
Suffice to say, that when an asteroid came hurtling towards planet earth seven years before the current days events of the film, humanity unleashed all the missile power at its disposal to break the loomingly massive threat into untroubling pebbles and chunks.
Mission accomplished there, but an inadvertent side effects of all these missiles going kaboom so close to earth was to shower the planet with cosmically energised chemical elements which had the effect of supersizing insects, reptiles and amphibians, in the process knocking humanity off the top of the food chain.
Net result – humanity vastly diminished in numbers with nothing like the amount of bug killer it needs to ward off its new swarming coldblooded enemies.
It might sound like a ridiculous premise, and honestly it likely is, but Love and Monsters does some mighty good work with it, not least managing to bring some real poignancy to the way in which this apocalyptic calamity affects those lucky, or unlucky, enough to be left behind a radically changed earth.
For all the quips and jokes, and honestly Joel has a lion’s share of them, with O’Brien bringing a zestfully fun level of comic delivery to them, infusing some very tense situations with the kind of black comedy that any sane person looking to safeguard what’s left of their healthy psyche would employ.
Or at the very least, to cope with a situation so extraordinary there is no precedent for it.
The core of the narrative is Joel’s decision to cross 85 miles of viciously gigantic insect and reptile infested country to see his seven-ears-ago high school sweetheart Aimee (Jessica Jenwick) who is leading a coastal colony sheltering a heavily-fortified cave on the coast.
Joel doesn’t think he’ll be much of a loss to the colony since he tends to freeze at the first sign of a murderously monstrous incursion, but Love and Monsters uses his quixotic quest to find his onetime true love to show that we are often valued far beyond what we realise and that the past, comforting though that warm blanket of nostalgia might be, especially in the wake of searing tragedy and great trauma, may not be what we need in the present.
Bring a huge amount of emotional resonance to Love and Monsters are a number of key characters, including one who is not human but who plays a pivotal role in helping Joel on what looks like a suicide mission to buggy oblivion but which turns out to be anything but.
The MVP of the film, beyond Joel himself of course is Boy, a dog who has somehow survived where so many many tasty mammals before him, have not, and who comes to Joel’s aid again and again, and who brings an affecting to so many key scenes.
Also crucial to Love and Monsters‘ affecting storytelling are Michael Rooker as Clyde Dutton and his eight-year-old charge Minnow (Ariana Greenblatt), two travelling companions who are a wealth of knowledge when it comes to surviving the coldblooded apocalypse and who not give companionship and comfort to Joel (but only after mightily, if affectionately, mocking his lack of usable survival skills which they seek to rectify) but help come into his own in the present as someone who doesn’t have to live off past happiness to find his way in a vastly changed world.
The scenes where these three journey together are wholly poignantly moving, and beautifully funny too, and embody the spirit of a film which rather expertly manages to be both comedic and dramatic without once cannibalising either element.
The only time Love and Monster missteps a little, and honestly it’s not even close to fatal, is in the final somewhat cheesy final part of the last act, but even that gives us a chance to see a reborn Joel come well and truly into his own, not only as an expert survivor but as someone who has found some healing from past trauma (where it had largely anchored him) and how is ready to move to embrace life as it is now, and maybe even lead the rest of humanity, or at least those close by, into an unexpectedly hopefully and potentially promising future.
Love and Monsters is a delightful surprise delivering real warmth and sparklingly inspired good humour and superlatively funny oneliners, some first rate affectingly luminous performances and all while being both silly and deeply serious, a tautly-delivered combination of narrative magic which brings some original to the apocalypse genre and reminds us as it does so, that the end of things may not be so final after all (and yes that perhaps, you should buy the super-sized insect killer pack when you are next at a bulk goods store).