Monolith
Directed by Matt Vesely
Written by Lucy Campbell
Starring Lily Sullivan
Unrated
Runtime: 1 hour, 34 minutes
In theaters and digital February 16

by Tina Kakadelis, Staff Writer

“I want to tell you a story…all you have to do is listen.” While this isn’t the opening line of Monolith, it’s a sentence uttered fairly early on by the film’s only on-screen character. She is known solely as The Interviewer (Lily Sullivan) and is the begrudging host of a mystery true-crime podcast. It’s clear she doesn’t want to be doing this, but The Interviewer is running from something in her past, a journalistic faux pas that has turned the internet against her. The Interviewer’s inbox is filled with people who want her to pay for the way she jumped to conclusions and those who have doxxed and threatened her. To escape, she has returned to her childhood home as she tries to find a story worth chasing down. A lead comes in The Interviewer’s email about a mysterious black brick that brings misfortune to those who receive one.

It’s no surprise to anyone who has been consuming content in the last few years that society’s appetite has shifted to favor content they feel they can participate in. With clickbait YouTube videos, there’s a common enemy that people can rally around, somehow outraged that the content they’re actively providing views for continues to thrive. With true crime, the internet is crawling with amateur sleuths who are sure they’re able to solve the case. It seems as though there’s a disconnect between the stories we consume and the truth. Even when presented with all the facts and information, conspiracy theories spread like wildfire. Monolith exists at the intersection of true crime and clickbait. The Interviewer’s initial intentions were to be a journalist on the side of truth, but she lets that cloud her judgment without fully vetting her sources so hers can be the first article posted. At the end of the day, we’re operating in a time when a journalist’s value is in clicks for businesses.

For its entire runtime, Monolith’s frame features only The Interviewer, but the voices of family members, sources, and concerned callers all come into play. It would seem like this set-up would work better as a podcast due to the distinctly auditory nature of most of the characters, but something essential would be lost. Sullivan gives a deeply physical performance and allows the audience to burrow in beside her as the tension grows. For so much of the movie, we are trapped in that brutal, empty house with The Interviewer as she seemingly works around the clock. When she steps outside for a cigarette, you can almost taste the fresh air yourself. It’s the briefest of releases before the mystery continues.

Monolith’s greatest weakness is its ending. That’s not to say it entirely fumbles all the goodwill it accrues through the rest of the runtime, but the explanation for the black bricks feels a little underwhelming after the excruciatingly tense build-up. The theme comes through just fine, but the execution is more wobbly than the set-up. It’s quite a feat to turn the concept of a plain black brick into something that can induce dread. The Interviewer, and likely the audience, is skeptical about the phone calls she keeps getting about this supposedly cursed object, but it’s a testament to the voice actors that one can very quickly find themselves believing something sinister is at work here.

Monolith is the quintessential film for this age of misinformation we’re living in. It shows the audience how easy it can be to turn nothing into something, how obsession can oh-so-quickly unravel a person. Humans are insatiable when it comes to information, but we must be careful which paths we go down.