(Reviews of Your Monster; and Made in Ethiopia)
YOUR MONSTER.
Having already drawn on an anguishing personal experience for a 2020 short, director Caroline Lindy recycles both the premise and the title for her feature bow, Your Monster. A bold blend of rom-com, horror, melodrama, and musical, this is quite a way to announce your arrival and, even though she pushes her luck at times and fumbles the odd sequence, Lindy is more than entitled to a goodly wodge of cut slack.
Sitting in a wheelchair in a hospital corridor thinking back on her cancer diagnosis and being dumped post-surgery by her boyfriend, Laura Franco (Melissa Barrera) scarcely feels better when she returns to her mother's New York brownstone because best friend Mazie Silverberg (Kayla Foster) bales on her just after promising to be there when she's needed. The sound of Dick Van Dyke singing `Put on a Happy Face' on the soundtrack doesn't help matters. Nor do the numerous pies her mother keeps sending her. Indeed, Laura becomes so despondent that she hugs the delivery man who brings the huge boxes of tissues she keeps ordering from Amazon because she can't stop crying.
Jacob Sullivan (Edmund Donovan) had offered her the lead in House of Good Women, a musical they had been developing together for Broadway. But he had shattered this dream when he broke up with her and has now made things worse by casting established star Jackie Dennon (Meghann Fahy) in the lead. Mazie tells Laura not to let him get to her, as does Monster (Tommy Dewey), a childhood bogeyman who emerges once again from her wardrobe one dark and stormy night.
As he has become used to living alone, Monster gives Laura a fortnight to sort herself out. However, over the course of the next few days, battles over the hoover and the thermostat lead them to fight over the remote control when she wants to watch Stanley Donen's Royal Wedding (1951) and he would prefer a good documentary, like George A. Romero's Night of the Living Dead (1968). Laura wins the tussle and Monster has to deny that Fred Astaire has made him cry.
Encouraged by Monster to attend the auditions for Jacob's show, Laura gains confidence from the fact that assistant Scotty (Taylor Trensch) compliments her on her performances during the workshop stage. However, she feels intimidated by Jackie and muffs her number when Jacob makes it clear he's not pleased to see her and assistant director Don McBride (Ikechukwu Ufomadu) tucks into his lunch when she starts singing. Monster proves supportive and surprises Laura with a sensitive line reading from William Shakespeare's The Comedy of Errors.
When Jacob calls. Monster becomes peevish. But he sees that Laura has been hurt by missing out on a part that means so much to her. She has been asked to join the ensemble and understudy Jackie, but she is clearly down and Monster tries to cheer her up by smashing some of her mother's crockery. She finds dropping a plate therapeutic and they wind up having a food fight that culminates in Monster agreeing that Laura doesn't have to move out.
At the table reading of the play, Laura finds herself sitting next to Jackie, who is given a special round of applause by Jacob. Mazie insists on sitting next to Laura, as she has been cast in a minor role, and helps her look for something to wear in the costume cupboard when Jacob invites the cast to the theatre's Halloween party. Dreading having to socialise with Jacob, Laura invites Monster to be her guest. But he protests that he would rather stay home and scare trick-or-treaters.
When the night comes, however, he admits that Laura has scrubbed up well as the Bride of Frankenstein, in a tight white spangly gown with lightning jags in her hair. At the party, Laura is miffed to be abandoned by Mazie and gets melancholically drunk watching Jacob flirt with Jackie. Much to her surprise, however, Monser makes an appearance and she is taken aback by his ability on the dance floor. Spotting Jackie and Jacob canoodling on the stairs, Laura makes an excuse to go to the bathroom so that she can spy on them. Monster finds her watching Jacob having sex and she is shocked when he lures him over to the trapdoor and lets him drop through.
On the way home, Laura and Monster argue on a deserted street about whether Jacob deserved his plunge. But she eventually agrees that he has betrayed her and she can't resist when Monster kisses her. They tumble into bed together (to the strains of Jimmy Durante singing `If I Had You') and Laura is charmed by Monster's sweetness over the following days. At rehearsals, she tries not to be upset by the sight of the sling-wearing Jacob mooning around Jackie, while she enjoys canoodling with Monster at home. They even agree to have a date night.
However, Laura loses track of time at the end of a complicated day. Having witnessed Jacob giving Jackie grief over a song she had helped write. Laura gives her ex both barrels on the stage in front of the rest of the company. Seeking support from Mazie, Laura is frustrated when she turns away and she castigates her for being a lousy friend. As she's about to leave the theatre, Jacob asks for a quiet word in his office. She apologises for the outburst and admits to still being in love with him. They have sex, only for Jacob to fire Laura as he does up his pants.
Arriving home late, Laura sees that Monster had laid the table for a romantic dinner. She finds him in a secret room behind her closet and marvels at all the cuddly toys he has squirrelled away as keepsakes, as well as lots of her discarded socks. But he notices that she avoids making eye contact and disappears after they argue, leaving Laura feeling so down that not even the news that she is cancer free can cheer her up.
Much to her surprise, Jackie comes to check up on her. She has only just been told that Jacob and Laura had once been an item and reassures her that she has no interest in Jacob and had only tolerated his flirting because he's her boss. Moreover, she apologises for stealing the lead in the show and suggests there might be a way to make amends.
On opening night, a disguised Laura slips through the stage door and heads for Jackie's dressing room. In a stairwell, she sees Jacob and Mazie having a knee-trembler and she realises that they must have been together at the Halloween party. Refusing to listen to Mazie's apology, Laura gets ready to go on. Jacob is appalled when he realises what's happened and is even more furious when the audience warms to Laura's performance, as the schoolgirl who rebels against a repressive principal.
Storming on to the stage, as the intermission curtain drops, Jacob sends everyone away before confronting Laura. She snaps the ruler from the principal's desk and stands her ground, as Jacob bellows at her for ruining his big night. Nevertheless, Laura is still on stage when Act Two of Jacob's `love letter to women' starts and she gives an impassioned rendition of the showstopping number. However, she has blood on her uniform and, as she sings, we see what had transpired when Monster had joined her on the stage. When the camera pulls back, it can be seen that Laura is finishing her solo as blood pools around Jacob's corpse upstage. Horrified audience members wonder if this is part of the show, as Laura stands alone in the spotlight.
How different the history of movie musicals might have been if Julian Marsh (Warner Baxter) had said to Peggy Sawyer (Ruby Keeler) at the end of Lloyd Bacon's 42nd Street (1933), `you're going out a youngster but you've got to come back a monster!' Caroline Lindy doesn't quite pull off the most Guignolesque denouement in the genre's history, but she comes close enough for this to become an instant cult classic. It's just a shame that she didn't include a few more numbers, to go with the couple on stage and the piano duet between Laura and Monster. Maybe songwriters Daniel and Patrick Lazour can rustle up a couple more if rumours of a stage transfer ever come to fruition.
Trading on her experiences in John M. Chu's In the Heights (2021) and Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett's Scream (2022) and Scream VI (2023), Melissa Barrera handles the musical and horror sides of her role with aplomb. She also amusingly plays up the moping melodramatics, as she sulks her way through her post-op ordeal in order to make her burgeoning chemistry with Tommy Dewey's Monster all the disarming. Wearing make-up that makes him look like Dan Stevens's younger brother in Bill Condon's 2017 live-action remake of Disney's Beauty and the Beast (1991), Dewey (returning from Lindy's short) combines slacker charm with a simmering menace that makes perfect sense when Laura's big secret is revealed.
Kayla Foster is drolly fickle as the hopeless Mazie, while Meghann Fahy deftly reveals the Broadway diva's redeeming features. But Edmund Donovan deserves credit for making the self-obsessed Jacob such a schlemiel, although it doesn't say much for Laura that she stuck by him for so long without noticing. One wonders how much the coward who inspired Lindy's ire enjoyed the picture. Capably abetted by production designer Brielle Hubert, cinematographer Will Stone, score composer Tim Williams, and editors Daysha Broadway and Jon Higgins (who do like a montage), she clearly leaves everything on the screen and it will be intriguing to see what she does next, as this laudably ambitious, cannily played, exquisitely vengeful, and slightly messy genre-blurring empowerment metaphor will be a hard act to follow.
MADE IN ETHIOPIA.
Half the population of Ethiopia is under the age of 18, which makes it an attractive prospect for companies seeking plentiful and cheap labour. China has sought to exploit the situation by establishing the Eastern Industry Park in Dukem, a small town in the Oromia region near the capital, Addis Ababa. In all, 103 firms have factories at the complex, producing aluminium, cement, ceramics, and clothing. But, as Xinyan Yu and Max Duncan discovered over the four years they spent shooting Made in Ethiopia, the benefits of this enterprise are weighted heavily in favour of the interlopers.
The scene is set by footage of a wedding between a Chinese man and a younger Ethiopian woman. A wad of cash is placed on a platter and handed to the parents of the bride before a small procession of tooting cars heads to the Eastern Industry Park that has dominated the surrounding landscape since 2008. Inside a cavernous shoemaking factory in 2019, giant red banners urge on the workforce with slogans like `Absolute Concentration', `High Level of Democracy', ` Reciprocal Benefit and Mutual Benefit', `Obedience and Punctuality', and `Make Progress Together'. Deputy director Motto Ma shows a superior around and almost bursts with pride as she reveals that some 3000 people work in the plant and that an Ethiopian friend in America had burst into tears when she had seen the quality of the shoes on sale from her homeland.
This typical of the bluster that Motto favours in promoting the EIP, which she gigglingly claims has become such a tourist hotspot that they should consider selling tickets. A quick shuttle around Addis Ababa is accompanied by Western media audio explaining how governments seeking to end the image of war and famine have embraced Chinese investment, with the city boasting Africa's first light railway network. But, while Motto is keen to convey the impression of one big Sino-Ethiopian family, the reality is very different.
For Betelihem `Beti' Ashenafi and her three friends, money is often tight, as they only earn $50 a month and rents in the area have started to increase. As Beti sews jeans, a male supervisor chides her to work more quickly, but the language barrier prevents effective communication. Motto, however, speaks perfect English, as she hosts a Dutch delegation that leaves with nothing but good impressions. But they don't see Beti and her co-workers being frisked as they leave the EIP and pile on to buses taking them to humble abodes nearby.
Motto misses her daughter and plans, after 14 years in Ethiopia, to bring her and her parents to Africa. Her main focus, however, is on the Phase Two expansion of the EIP and she meets with government representatives to discuss the swift transfer of land so that they can offer 50,000 new jobs. This is bad news, however, for farmers like Workinesh and Adugna Chala, whose six children include daughter, Rehoboth. Although promises were made for compensation for the loss of land, many farmers have yet to be accommodated and Adugna wonders where they are going to be able to practice traditions like praying to Abdari for rain when they lose access to a ceremonial tree that has been growing for centuries.
When Motto comes to investigate why the farmers are blocking work on land that has been acquired by the EIP, she learns that many have not been fully paid for the loss of their dwellings. Others complain that the plots that have been apportioned are too small for even three cows. Tired of rolling dung for the fire, Workinesh wouldn't mind moving to the city. But her husband feels they are losing out and refuses to budge, as he doesn't share her view or that of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed that urban living is the future.
Beti quite likes having a lot of people around to celebrate the Epiphany and Motto vows to put on a good New Year show for the employees who haven't travelled back to China. She claims she has starved for two days to fit into the kind of blue princess dress that she dreamt of owning as a child and beams as she shakily leads everyone in a sentimental karaoke ballad.
However, progress is stalled by Covid-19 and the camera picks out a plodding tortoise to symbolise the pace of life, as workers are made to live inside the EIP so that production can continue during the pandemic. Beti is frustrated by the restrictions and she shares family phone photos with Motto during their down time, who tries to encourage her to find a nice Chinese boy. She admits, though, that her son refuses to speak to her because he feels she abandoned him to pursue her career far away. Coronavirus has also impacted upon the farming community, as money earmarked for compensation has been diverted and they are confused as to what is happening.
Dukem's Mayor Teshome has plans to build a City Park that will turn the village into the new Singapore. He summons local business owners to seek investment, but the land he intends to use has already been promised to the farmers displaced by EIP2. Motto decides to collaborate with the rival concern, as she feels they need to work together. Her project manager (also called Adugna) is less convinced and wants to mark up the farm land to prepare for breaking ground. When Motto comes to watch, an elderly woman upbraids her and she tries to pacify her with a patronising hug.
Months after Motto promises a win-win for all concerned, many farm families are left without compensation and Workinesh and Adugna start bickering about money and future plans. Rehoboth reveals that her mother was kidnapped into marriage and she exhorts her children to study hard so that they can have options in life. It makes her sad that her father has taken to drink and pesters them at night, but Workinesh is angry that country women in Ethiopia have no voice. By contrast, Beti has quit the jeans factory and has hopes of being promoted at her new place of work. She confides in translator friend, Edae, about taking Chinese lessons to improve her prospects. Convinced that the Chinese are here to stay, he feels he's a made man. But he finds it hard translating for Motto, as she threatens to lay off the women who won't accept the new daily quota without a pay rise. She reminds them that they can easily be replaced and that they will find it hard to find alternative employment. Edae is relieved when they return to their machines, as he hates being caught in the middle.
However, it's the consequences of the war in the northern Tigray province that prove more problematic, as the government calls on citizens to enlist to combat the rebels. The United States imposes sanctions in 2021 and inflation soars, prompting some overseas investors to withdraw. With Beti worrying about her own job, as thousands are laid off, Motto curses the fact that a pandemic and a civil war have thwarted her plans for Phase Two. But Dukem's business community is furious, as promises have been broken and Teshome is delegated to demand answers.
He complains that the EIP thought only of profit rather than building hospitals and schools, but we didn't hear a lot about them when he was pushing his own project. Meanwhile, of course, it's the ordinary people who suffer the most, especially those farmers still awaiting their payments. Workinesh is angry that the land that was taken for the City Park could still be being farmed, while Motto is enraged by the mayor's cheek in blaming her for problems that are out of her control and that he is exacerbating to protect his own back. Beti is also in low spirits, as she attends a bonfire vigil in the rain and regrets the fact that she has surviving has prevented her from following her dreams. Even Motto feels like crying and only her faith in her `Ethiopian brothers and sisters' prevents her from going home.
Eighteen months later, Motto is running her own coffee exporting company, as she has run out of patience with the EIP partnership. Having taken time out to study, Beti has actually returned to the park to work for a different company. While still waiting for her compensation land, Workinesh has become part of a collective supplying clothing to Chinese factories. Teshome has left Dukem to join the regional trade board. His City Park lies derelict, but EIP2 remains an ongoing project.
The coda proves even more sobering than much of what had preceded it, as it suggests that few lessons have been learned from the mismanagement and muddle that had been compounded by conflict and the pandemic. At times, Yu and Duncan run the risk of demonising the determinedly upbeat Motto while patronising the farmers appealing to their ancient spirits. But the situation is too complicated for side-taking, as even calculating corporate cheerleaders are human beings with problems and vulnerabilities.
Clearly, there are no easy solutions when it comes to powerful states seeking to cash in by satisfying social and economic ambitions within low-income countries. But the documentary's focus on individuals caught up in the Dukem dilemma leaves little room for the political context that would make sense of the strategies pursued by central and local administrations and the nationwide impact of the war in the north. Indeed, the film is on much stronger ground when it sticks to culture clashes by examining the racial dynamic between the Chinese and the Ethiopians and when it assessing the status of women in the modern world, as, even though Motto has a high-powered job and more agency than Beti and Workinesh, she is still looked down upon in a way that a male executive would not.
There are echoes of Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert's American Factory (2019) in the way that Yu and Duncan poke fun at Motto's state-ingrained hubris and awkward attempts at bonding with the Ethiopians (whose language she has not mastered in 14 years). But she proves so boisterous that she commands more screen time than Beti and Workinesh, whose exchanges with her husband and daughter are respectively painful and poignant to watch. Despite the perspectival imbalance, however, the film provides plenty to mull over, as this is far from being an isolated case.
Comments