“Monolith” (2022) focuses on The Interviewer (Lily Sullivan), a disgraced reporter trying to make a comeback by working on a podcast called “Beyond Believable” while hiding out in her parents’ spacious, isolated contemporary home. When she receives an anonymous email about a brick, a person’s name, and a phone number, she follows the breadcrumbs, which leads her to everything that she wanted: a sensational story and success, but the mysterious phenomenon is a Trojan Horse that leads her down a path that threatens everything in her life. If life was fair, debut feature director Matt Vesely and writer Lucy Campbell’s perfect film would come true. Stop reading this review and go watch it!
A lot of misguided movies have a lot of fat that could be cut to make a leaner, more satisfying film. Many start strong but cannot sustain the momentum until the end and wind up disappointing. Some stories want to moralize so badly that they lose sight of the fact that sermons can be boring, and narratives can be too sensational without giving enough thought to how it should work as a whole and feel slipshod, all sizzle, no steak. “Monolith” has no problems, and it is shocking to witness such a self-assured economical film that feels luxurious, confident, and experienced on every level.
It is a one-woman, one location show starring Sullivan, who is riveting the entire reasonable runtime. It would be lame and a smidge pretentious if her character was thought of as The Interviewer, but it is unnoticeable that no one ever uses her name. Mediated through her phone or computer, her exchanges with the outside world feel authentic and familiar. While her character is emblematic of an archetype, the focused journalist, she feels like an individual. She is reckless, hardworking, and arrogant, but ultimately likeable. She starts off as a kind of underdog at the nadir of her career, taking a job that is beneath her skillset because of either a well-intentioned mistake or youthful zeal, a doxed woman fleeing a mob. It is easy to root for her while understanding that she is not learning from her past mistakes and see how she may be endangering herself again. The house and the turtle, Ian, act as her on screen supporting actors who speak to The Interviewer’s past, character and status without being too heavy handed or prose dump heavy.
Without spoiling “Monolith,” the actual investigation is the kind of topic that I would find interesting. In real life if I had the time, which I do not, I would totally listen to her podcast. It has the maniacal feel of late-night AM radio broadcasts. Other vocal actors lighten the load for Sullivan as family, friends, and sources whom she calls for moral support or to investigate the phenomenon: black bricks appear, and no one knows how. What are they and how do they function. Is it supernatural, extraterrestrial or a hoax? There are answers although they are ambiguous. The vocal acting is phenomenal, and even though the film spends a brief amount of time with these off-screen characters, the script is so well written that they feel like three-dimensional characters, and there is a deft balance between foreshadowing without giving away everything. The details will pique your interest without treating the audience like they are dumb or spelling everything out.
From the beginning, “Monolith” feels like a pandemic movie. The Interviewer is alone in a vast, isolated space, which feels clinical in its steel blue gray tones and minimalist décor. She rarely goes out into nature, and she only contacts people through devices. Her image of success is remote and quiet: words on a screen, but the vocal tone that penetrate her space are trembling and anxious. To establish a routine, handwritten notes on the outside of brown paper bags lie adjacent to a stapled receipt without evidence of a delivery person, sort of like the bricks. These bags overflow with fresh groceries. She spends little time in nature as if the fresh air was a contagion. She wears comfortable clothes, and she and her surroundings become more disheveled as the film progresses. Even though she is in her childhood home, there is little warmth, and no parents providing emotional support by being present or routinely checking in on her. Even when nothing is happening, there is a sense of dread that even the appearance of her back in a reflected surface feels threatening as if it would suddenly move independently, turn and stare at her, which it never does. The spectre of infection is implied with the 2020 vibe in the way that she lives.
Going viral takes on a whole new meaning if the black bricks are disseminated through word of mouth. “Monolith” never confirms this detail, but it feels like an allusion to “The Ring” (2002). [I’m too chicken to watch the Japanese original.] Her podcasting becomes reckless after this theory arises. The black brick is a coveted object, a source of power, but also dread, and that dread takes different forms depending on the person who holds the brick. It seems to connect to a verbalized shame or elusively unspoken: a taboo wish, a furtive violation of trust or the siren call of the Scylla and Charybdis entrancing its holder to dash themselves against the rocks of destruction.
Vesely flashes clues regarding The Interviewer’s connection to the brick. The only times that the film leaves the location of her parents’ home is when a person on the phone describing a vision. Then Vesely depicts their account. The camera tracks forward at a methodical pace with an ordinary object appearing pitch black: soap, water, paper, cake, or candles. It sounds innocuous, but it makes the quotidian world feel polluted. While I’m not a fan of promulgating the black equals bad trope, I may sign a waiver in this case.
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Because of the alien theories bandied about in this story, it may remind sci-fan fans of the black oil, black cancer, or purity from “The X-Files,” an alien virus that possessed its humanoid host. In “Supernatural,” demon possessed people would have the same appearance as the possessing aliens in “The X-Files.” In this case, it is not a force of evil, but of accountability and vengeance. Bravo to Australians for making an anti-colonialist film with colonizers in the forefront without rooting for them. The brick comes to people who do something wrong, and prolonged exposure causes loss of appetite, disassociation, time loss, hallucinations, intrusive thoughts, and self-harming—this last symptom is a bit tongue in cheek. If interpreted literally, a doppelganger rises from the brick and either kills and replaces the original in order to do the right thing, which the original refuses to do. An alternate explanation is that = after encountering the doppelganger, the original changes their ways and confesses their sins to survive. The brick is a force of accountability. It makes sense that people above the law and lack a conventional sense of morality and ethics would have a similar experience. It is open-ended if it is happening, i.e. is supernatural, or is a mental illness. Either way, it works instead of feeling as if it is cheating.
I started to become suspicious of The Interviewer during her first phone conversation with Klaus Lang (Terence Crawford), a German art dealer who makes a veiled allusion to the Nazis and stolen artwork which suggests that his moral code is not as robust as it should be yet he calls himself a “good man” who values the truth. “No man is good but God.” Vesely spends his time showing the art in her parents’ house, which should spark the question of whether their art has a good provenance. It reminded me aesthetically of “Good Madam” (2021). As Vesely shows the Interviewer preparing the podcast and altering the order of her first interviewee’s words, it retroactively should make one recall a remark that Floramae King (Ling Cooper Tang) whispered about the well-to-do family. Instead of classifying The Interviewer’s response as empathetic, commiserating response, it could be interpreted as manipulation, especially considering her surroundings. She would relate to the family, not their housekeeper. In turn, it recontextualizes The Interviewer’s claim that she was trying to do the right thing and telling the truth when she destroyed her career. She records people without their permission and does not respect Floramae’s interview conditions. She does not do the right thing.
I loved when the big reveal traces the origin of her rotting corruption to The Interviewer’s childhood. The brick forces the holder to confront the reality of how horrible they are. The brick is only as dangerous as the holder when they are forced to face themselves. It also evoked images of addiction: Klaus is compelled to collect them; The Interviewer rationalizes to her friend Scott (Matt Crook) that she is fine while looking troubled; and Laura Sully (Kate Box), a financial consultant who does not reveal her original sin, refuses to attempt to throw it out or destroy it. They are addicted to hurting people, which only hurts them. Floramae’s daughter, Paula (Ansuya Nathan), explains, “People like you feed off the world;” thus the lack of appetite and puking the brick back up. That evil is indigestible. The black brick can be like carbon copying a person. It is a great visual metaphor, especially when the doppelgänger trope of only one can survive comes into play and is more like the Terminator in terms of strength. There is even an ominous walk when the Interviewer runs away yet her doppleganger appears unruffled beside her.
“Monolith” works on multiple levels, which is a rare treat for movie goers. Vesely and Campbell’s skills match their ambitions. If their first film is such a success, I cannot wait to see their next project.
