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Seven Minutes Past Midnight

Seven Minutes Past Midnight

USA/Spanien 2016 - with Felicity Jones, Lewis MacDougall, Sigourney Weaver, Toby Kebbell, Liam Neeson ...

The Frankfurt-Tipp rating:

Movie info

Original title:A Monster calls
Genre:Drama, Fantasy
Direction:J.A. Bayona
Cinema release:04.05.2017
Production country:USA/Spanien 2016
Running time:Approx. 109 min
Rated:Age 12+
Web page:www.studiocanal.de

How Conor (Lewis MacDougall) would love to be bothered with normal teenage problems. Everything in his life seems to be going down the drain right now. His mother (Felicity Jones) is seriously ill, so the boy has to move in with his hypothermic, strict grandmother (Sigourney Weaver). At school, he is shown little sympathy. On the contrary. On a daily basis, Conor is bullied by other classmates. And his father (Toby Kebbell) only has time for his new family. When Conor wakes up from another nightmare one night, he is startled to find that the large yew tree in front of the house has turned into a monster, who from then on regularly visits him at seven minutes past midnight to tell him three stories. Not knowing whether he is dreaming it all, the monster's stories lead him down an unusual and difficult path - the path to a truth the boy does not want to admit.

Seven Minutes Past Midnight is a touching story about the difficult threshold from childhood to adulthood, about grief, loneliness and the need to let go. With great sensitivity and an imaginative visual language, director J.A. Bayona (The Orphanage) has transformed Patrick Ness's multiple award-winning novel into a gripping cinema drama that became the most successful film of the year in its native Spain in 2016. The great art of this story, both in the form of the book and in its cinema adaptation, is that although it is told from the point of view of a child, it deals with many themes with which one can identify even as an adult.

The contrast with the gravity of reality and the admittedly somewhat dark playfulness of the fantasy elements initially seems too great a discrepancy for the production to fail. But it soon becomes clear how the two are connected - and that then gives the film its very special character. Seven Minutes After Midnight shows impressively how empathetically the childish mind can find a way to deal with an unspeakable truth. However, this is not only beautifully illustrated by the visuals, but also by the great acting of the cast.

Especially new discovery Lewis MacDougall and a really great Sigourney Weaver can leave a lasting impression. Towards the end there is a moment between the two that scratches very close to the kitsch border, but which the two deliver so credibly and confidently that it can lead to goosebumps and maybe even a few tears in the audience. Seven Minutes After Midnight is sad and beautiful at the same time, imaginatively playful and depressingly real. A wonderful film that gives a life-affirming light of hope even in the deep darkness of grief. Absolutely worth seeing

An article by Frankfurt-Tipp

Media:

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  • Seven Minutes Past Midnight
Cinema trailer for the movie "Seven Minutes Past Midnight (USA/Spanien 2016)"
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