Love and Monsters: A Coming-of-Age Story in the Apocalypse
Just as Joel (Dylan O’Brien) was embarking on his first-ever romance with a lovely girl, the world came to an end. An impending asteroid strike triggered mutations across the planet. Vivid animated interludes illustrate how goldfish began devouring their owners, and a humble flyswatter evolved into a shotgun for battling cockroaches. Seven post-apocalyptic years have passed since the cataclysm that marked the beginning of this new era: 95% of humanity has perished, and the survivors have formed communities, seeking refuge in bunkers, basements, and other shelters where monsters struggle to reach them.
Dylan O’Brien as Joel in a still from “Love and Monsters”
In cinema, the apocalypse has manifested in various forms, with diverse survival strategies: lone heroes in deserted cities, romantic journeys in search of companionship at the world’s end, or even the eccentric psychosis of Hollywood actors. Director Michael Matthews, navigating the extremes of genre (or rather, incorporating a bit of everything), tempers the epic pretentiousness and sense of chosen-one destiny often associated with such narratives. “Love and Monsters” is, at its core, a coming-of-age story set against the backdrop of a devastated world.
Jessica Henwick as Aimee in a still from “Love and Monsters”
Joel’s Journey
Through no fault of his own, Joel remains a teenager at 24. The best summer of his life abruptly ended, and instead of college dorms, he found himself within the iron walls of a colony bunker. His parents were less fortunate, their journey tragically cut short before it began. As his fellow survivors pair off, Joel is left with pots and pans and minestrone soup. While others hunt for food and battle mutants, he milks the cow, draws, and pines over the radio – his former flame, Aimee (Jessica Henwick), has survived but is miles away. Joel embodies the modern hero: timid, insecure, vulnerable, romantic, and seemingly helpless – a portrait of the masculinity currently facing a perceived crisis. Despite his neighbors’ warnings and anxieties (“You won’t last a minute out there”), he decides to trade platonic relationships and hiding from death for an adventure with a promising happy ending, setting off on foot to Aimee’s colony.
Echoes of Familiar Tales
“Love and Monsters” manages to be both reminiscent of other films in the genre and yet distinct from them. Like Columbus (Jesse Eisenberg) in “Zombieland,” Joel compiles an illustrated encyclopedia of survival and a catalog of monstrous creatures. He encounters his own Tallahassee, reminiscent of “The Walking Dead” (Michael Rooker), accompanied by a young partner with a pink crossbow (Ariana Greenblatt). Joel’s primary companion on his expedition to the coast is a well-behaved dog named Boy: a brave and independent canine longing for his owner. Spoiler alert: there are no heartbreaking “I Am Legend” endings here. The song “Stand by Me” echoes through the night, filled with flying jellyfish, a nod to Rob Reiner’s timeless classic – and like the boys in King’s story, Joel faces his own swamp of leeches. The director himself has stated in interviews that he drew inspiration from films he grew up with, such as “Back to the Future” and the Indiana Jones series. These references resonate with the audience, mirroring the protagonist’s feelings: after an impressive victory over a monster, Joel compares himself to Tom Cruise in “Mission: Impossible,” as if shedding the armor of a cinematic character – he, like us, has only witnessed battles with death on screen.
Dylan O’Brien as Joel in a still from “Love and Monsters”
A World Reclaimed by Nature
The film possesses its own sense of time and an open world where life lurks behind every stone, electric poles are held hostage by overgrown vegetation, and toads have grown to the size of bears. Australia, the chosen filming location, is capable of frightening inhabitants of other continents with its flora and fauna even without mutations. A frenzied pulse of uncontrolled energy ripples across the screen, and the horizontal movement of the plot races forward without pause: comedic, touching, and action-packed scenes alternate in a whirlwind. At times, “Love and Monsters” is overly sentimental, naive, and sweet, and occasionally shamelessly predictable: the savior, the deus ex machina, appears precisely when most needed, and the true monsters are, as always, humans, who are more terrifying than most creatures.
A Timely Message
In the end, Joel inevitably matures in seven days outside, making up for seven years inside, accepting himself and conquering his fear. But surprisingly, all this familiarity, both pop-cultural and in terms of plot structure, doesn’t detract from the film; it only adds to its cozy charm. Perhaps the main merit of “Love and Monsters” (which likely targeted teenagers) lies in its timely moral, even though the creators could hardly have foreseen the film’s relevance at the time of production. Even in the worst of times, one must strive to live life to the fullest, not just fear and hide. Without losing sanity and common sense, one should venture out of their bunker to face a new day: “Don’t dwell on it, you don’t need to, especially when the world has ended.”