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The captivating and excellently performed film by Italian director Andrea Pallaoro centers around a mysterious miracle. It breaks away from the typical formula of “issue movies” with its lack of confrontations, catharsis, and resolution. Similar to Pallaoro’s previous work Hannah, which featured Charlotte Rampling as the tormented Hannah, Monica also showcases a strict compositional style. The story unfolds through carefully crafted, quiet scenes and distant shots from a fixed camera, occasionally accompanied by intense and unbalanced close-ups.
Trace Lysette, a transgender performer, portrays the character of Monica. Monica’s main source of income is from sex work. She has developed a smooth and pleasant voice, possibly for professional purposes. However, this voice also reveals anger in her phone conversations, which are only heard from one side. These conversations are with her partner or disappointing clients. Monica is currently going through a traumatic breakup and is facing distressing news from her family. Her mother, Eugenia (played by Patricia Clarkson), is in the final stages of a dementia-related condition and is being cared for in the family’s luxurious home. Monica was previously kicked out of this house as a teenager. Her brother Paul (Joshua Close), sister-in-law Laura (Emily Browning), and their children are now providing assistance, along with the housekeeper Leticia (Adriana Barraza). Although Eugenia does not recognize Monica, she seems content to let her participate in the caregiving process.
The circumstances are very intricate and distressing. In a bedroom that used to be a part of her family’s home, possibly even Monica’s old bedroom, Monica attempts to engage in online sex work with a customer (which is solely to afford the maintenance of her temperamental red sports car), but her efforts are disrupted by the distressed crying and night terrors of Eugenia from the adjacent room. In another film, this situation could be portrayed as the darkest of black horror-comedies, but in this story, it is acknowledged with stoicism and empathy as just another issue to be resolved.
Monica has things she wants to say to Eugenia, but is unable to at the moment. However, a remarkable realization slowly emerges – for reasons unknown to Eugenia, she feels at ease and even happy around Monica. Both of them have reached a peculiar state of grace: they are free from their past and identities, and all the toxic family ties that were once painful; they simply interact with each other as human beings. It is a return to a state of innocence; there is a touching moment where Eugenia looks into Monica’s face and smiles like a content child. Even Paul, who initially seems hostile, warms up and reveals that he too, as a young person, felt vulnerable. This leads to the possibility that their late father may have been the source of their pain, rather than Eugenia. Overall, this is an exquisitely crafted and brilliantly intelligent film.
Source: theguardian.com
