Review of The Monk (2011) by Kenneth L — 05 Nov 2011

What a scandalous story! Ok, well, maybe it's not the most scandalous thing you could possibly find these days, but it's still pretty darn scandalous, and when the novel upon which it is based came out in 1796, people must have been beside themselves with shock. This movie effectively adapts the very old story as an atmospheric and salacious thriller.

I don't want to say too much about the plot, because there are definitely twists. I'll just say that it involves a charismatic monk in early 17th-century Spain and his relationships with other people of varying degrees of suspiciousness. Lechery and degradation ensue.

Vincent Cassel is effective as the titular monk. The performance requires him to project several types of intensity, spiritual and otherwise. There's a lot of leering and suffering going on, and Cassel does a fine job with it all. Deborah Francois gets a creepy role as Matilda. Josephine Japy is a good innocent young ingenue.

The novel is considered one of the key Gothic novels, and the movie's visual style can also appropriately be described as Gothic. Most of the scenes seem to take place at night, in an old monastery full of malevolent-looking gargoyles. Although the movie mostly remains plausible, some magical plot twists introduced later on might seem a bit hard to swallow today. It's not exactly a terrifying movie, but it's definitely got its creepy elements and shocking plot twists.