I know it’s a perversion of the English language to say so, but it’s hard not to think of Colossal as a “very unique” movie. (In fact, Microsoft Word is telling me right now to “consider using concise language.”) It’s a romantic comedy about a woman, Gloria (Anne Hathaway), who flees from New York City back to her rustic hometown, where she bumps into a guy (Jason Sudeikis) she used to know. It’s also a movie about a giant monster wreaking havoc on downtown Seoul. It’s two great tastes that go great together—especially once we learn that Gloria has an unexplained connection to the kaiju in question, able to somehow control its movements from half a world away.
It all makes sense eventually, or at least as much sense as it needs to. This sort of genre tweaking is nothing new to director Nacho Vigalondo. The Spanish filmmaker’s first feature, 2007’s Timecrimes, was a micro-budgeted time-travel thriller with a sleeveful of surprises; his next, 2011’s Extraterrestrial, asked the question, “What would you do if there was an alien invasion on the day you met the girl of your dreams?”
I talked with Vigalondo by phone about his approach to filmmaking and how cool it is to work with movie stars.