The animation in A Monster Calls has a pleasantly peculiar charm to itself. The film features two elaborate animated anti-fairytales told by an artistic splash of water colors across the screen, to form witches, kings, princes, forests, forts, dragons, wars and stories featuring them. This expressionistic rendering of fairytale stereotypes is contrasted by plot-twists of realism which the stories are keen on arriving at, in the otherwise conventional fables. This unsubtle contrast sits well with the film's theme which is a child's rough but inevitable journey into the cold realities of the wor....