Life and Limb

A childhood story that features grief, darkness and Liam Nesson as a hulking tree, A Monstor Calls is not your average family film. Total Film ventures on set of the fantasy tearjerker...

- Matt Glasby

It starts, as all things must, with an ending. In 2007, British children’s author Siobhan Dowd died of breast cancer, leaving behind an outline for her next book, A Monster Calls. “She had characters, premise, a beginning but not time,” wrote Patrick Ness in the introduction. But “stories don’t end with writers”. With permission from Dowd’s estate, Ness finished the book for her in 2011, with award-winning results.

Heart-rendingly sad, and hauntingly illustrated by Jim McKay, it tells of Conor O’Malley, a schoolboy whose mother is dying of cancer, and who, every night at 12.07, is visited by a monster: the ancient yew tree from the churchyard behind his house, brought to roaring, rustling life. The Monster has three stories for Conor, to carry him through the darkness, stories that “chase and bite and hunt”. One thing’s for sure, awash with grief and gothic realism, A Monster Calls is a tale that sinks its teeth in.

Having proved himself a master of maternal anguish with The Orphanage (2007) and The Impossible (2012), Spanish director J.A. Bayona would seem the perfect choice to translate Ness’ script to the screen. Working with him is super-producer (and “spare battery”) Belén Atienza, who oversaw Pan’s Labyrinth (2006), The Orphanage… basically every decent Spanish-language fantasy of the past decade, and the award-winning team behind The Impossible (who call their boss “Bayona” or simply “Jota”, pronounced “Hayotter”). Even with material this tricksy – and when was the last time you saw a family film about cancer and talking trees? – you wouldn’t bet against them. “It’s not a comedy,” confirms Bayona when we catch up with him on set in Terrassa, just outside Barcelona. Good job we cleared that up.