Monica

Trace Lysette provides one of the year’s greatest performances in Andrea Pallaoro’s subtle and stylish drama.

This is the second film that I have seen made by Andrea Pallaoro and, as with 2017’s Hannah which starred Charlotte Rampling, Monica shows just how adroit Pallaoro is when it comes to selecting his leading actresses. In the case of the earlier film, he had hoped from the start to persuade Rampling to play the isolated housewife who is its central figure. Here he did not initially have a specific person in mind although he was determined that the key role of Monica would indeed be taken by an actress who, like the character, was trans. In the event he found the ideal actress, namely Trace Lysette who has appeared in a few films and is even better known for her roles on television. Here she is the pivotal figure and she lives the part so authentically that she deserves to win best acting prizes.

If Rampling made Hannah fascinating, it also revealed Pallaoro to be a very individual director and one ready to embrace minimalism. His work in Monica is even more striking as he sets out to shoot it in a way that will give audiences every encouragement to identify with its central character who is in virtually every scene. We first meet Monica in California, a confident-sounding woman who seems well able to handle life even if the telephone calls that she makes hint at problems and insecurity. Then an incoming call from her sister-in-law, Laura (Emily Browning), informs her that her mother, Eugenia (Patricia Clarkson), a widow, is dying. Although she has long been away, Monica readily agrees to make the long trip to Ohio to see her mother and perhaps to help out. Currently it is Laura and her husband Paul (Joshua Close), a couple with three young children including a baby, who look after Eugenia aided by a devoted care worker, Leticia (Adriana Barraza).

We soon realise that Monica had left home when Eugenia’s realisation that she had a teenage son intent on being accepted as female had caused her to reject Monica completely. While Paul and Laura have to adjust to Monica as she is now, the fact that Eugenia has cancer and a brain tumour bringing with it dementia makes it natural that she should not recognise Monica as her child. Rather than attempting to explain, Monica is introduced into the house as somebody extra helping to look after the dying woman. We wait to see if the truth will emerge and whether or not there can be a remaining bond between a child thus turned out and the mother who had so hurt her.

Monica is a striking example of a film in which the style is perfectly matched with the subject matter. Monica may have made a life for herself but it has involved losing family roots and the support which that can offer. She has attained her own independence yet there is a sense that her life is such that it is a case of her against the world. Pallaoro has chosen to shoot Monica in the old limited Academy ratio which reflects the sense of being boxed in and enclosed, and thus suggests a loner fighting her way. Shots of telephone conversations involving Monica concentrate exclusively on her so that the other person is unseen and often unheard too. This may reduce what we know about her but it increases the sense of physical closeness that the viewer feels with Monica. Equally crucial to achieving this is the pitch perfect performance of Trace Lysette and the way in which the screenplay, by Pallaoro and his regular collaborator Orlando Tirado, plays down any sense of melodrama. The writing is infinitely subtle and that is apparent not only when exploring the complexities and inner needs within Monica but also in handling the issue of the extent to which Eugenia does or doesn’t become aware of who Monica is. Patricia Clarkson is the ideal actress to handle this expressively and without the slightest touch of overplaying. Indeed, the whole cast is fine including notable contributions from Emily Browning and Adriana Barraza.

The potential of Monica in the hands of these players and of these filmmakers is so strong that it might have become a masterwork. However, it seems to me that in its potent yet understated way the film reaches an effective conclusion some twenty minutes or so before its close. Admittedly, there is at least one later scene which in itself could also have provided a telling ending. Yet, overall, these final scenes seem not merely overextended but misjudged. They involve a grandson's graduation in a scene which suddenly takes on a patriotic tone that seems to belong to a different film. In addition, there are touches that seem to express a rather too positive view of family life given Monica's history. But, if the last section of Monica, goes off the boil, what precedes it is notably well done both in terms of Pallaoro’s direction and of the acting, most especially that by Trace Lysette for whom this is a triumph.

MANSEL STIMPSON

Cast: Trace Lysette, Patricia Clarkson, Emily Browning, Joshua Close, Adriana Barraza, Graham Caldwell, Brennan Pittman, Ruby James Fraser, Bobby Easley.

Dir Andrea Pallaoro, Pro Gina Resnick, Christina Dow, Eleonora Granata-Jenkinson and Andrea Pallaoro, Screenplay Andrea Pallaoro and Orlando Tirado, Ph Katelin Arizmendi, Pro Des Andrew Clark, Ed Paolo Freddi, Costumes Patrik Milani.

Varient/Solo Five Productions/Melograno Films/Propaganda Italia/Fenix Entertainment/Rai Cinema-606 Distribution.
113 mins. USA/Italy. 2022. US Rel: 12 May 2023. UK Rel: 15 December 2023. Cert. 15.