THE STORY – In a dystopian world marked by inequality and everyday violence, a grandmother is determined to make the most of the time she has left with her granddaughter. But as a series of events pushes them into increasing danger, love and fear begin to blur, forcing her to cross lines she never imagined.
THE CAST – Paulina García, Gloriana Vargas, Natalia Regidor, & Ericka Reinkendorf
THE TEAM – Neto Villalobos Brenes (Director/Writer) & Diego van der Laat Alfaro (Writer)
THE RUNNING TIME – 95 Minutes
Neto Villalobos Brenes’ “Love Is the Monster” follows Paulina García as an ailing Abuela who will do anything to keep her young granddaughter close in a Costa Rica where children are raised behind armed walls. It is harrowing, gorgeously shot, and carried by a devastating lead performance. The film takes its time to become the thriller it promises, but it is all the stronger for it, despite the answers it leaves behind.
Abuela, a woman of about seventy, lives in “the outskirts” of a dystopian Costa Rica made brittle by toxic air and lopsided wealth. Her granddaughter (Gloriana Vargas) lives inside the Perimeter, a guarded enclave where children breathe filtered air, wear masks outdoors, and are shadowed by nannies carrying guns. Abuela cannot reach her without getting her car sterilized and having special clearance. The children’s confinement, meant to keep a spreading cough away, echoes pandemic-era anxieties. Outside, a loudspeaker incessantly warns of suspicious persons and declares that children are the future.
Abuela’s daughter (Natalia Regidor) manages a plant where workers haven’t been paid and thus faces strangers confronting her in public and spray-painting her car in anger. She has many reasons to be afraid, and her own mother turns out to be one of them. The film never spells out what went wrong between them, but the friction is constant. Abuela seems to have been an absentee parent, now trying to make up for it by being a present grandparent, but her methods aren’t always wise. In one scene, she locks the nanny in a bathroom to steal an afternoon with the girl and take her to see a rabbit. In another, she accidentally seals her granddaughter in the car with the keys inside. Abuela’s ache takes center stage, but you also feel her daughter’s alarm.
The early scenes create tension from that friction. A small, sweet moment near the start hooks you on this relationship: barred from driving her granddaughter home, Abuela trails the girl’s car, and the two dance to their favorite song from separate vehicles. When her lapses in judgment backfire and she’s left alone, she drinks and smokes the night away. Medical papers lay beside the ashtray, presumably carrying news that she is dying. She burns them. The score, which carries thriller notes from the start, turns especially dark in these solitary moments when the reality that time is running out hits hardest.
The world-building works through small details. Missing-child posters line a building outside the Perimeter. Children learn to shoot, and the intercom announces that self-defense is your best friend. Workers holding machetes stop Abuela on the road to ask for money after months without wages. The scene reframes the whole setup: the outside is dangerous because corporate greed has made people desperate.
The cinematography is the film’s other great asset. It opens with a cross-fade from blue sky to Abuela lying on a blue bed and keeps finding stunning images, from aerial views of a dense, untouched forest to long drives past rows of palms. It is easily one of the best-looking films of this year.
“Love Is the Monster” stumbles in what it leaves out. Something happened to Abuela and her daughter years ago that left the daughter terrified enough to hire armed nannies, and the film gestures at it repeatedly without explaining. The film never addresses the whereabouts of the region’s men, the reasons child kidnappings are common, or what the Perimeter is actually protecting people from. It’s easy to forgive a dystopia that keeps its rules vague, but the missing family history is harder to let slide because that weakens the emotional stakes.
