Of late, there have been quite a few films focusing on sick or dying parents. The father comes to mind in this regard. A lot of people can relate to this because we have all had sick or dying parental figures. Some of us have had to spend quite a bit of our time taking care of them or taking them to doctor appointments and such. It’s just part of life. Monica is about this very subject and a bit more.

Monica (Trace Lysette) is a woman who isn’t doing very well. She’s pretty and has a beautiful body. You would think she could find a man to take care of her, but she can’t. She does use her body as a sex symbol, She even uses dating sites to date men, but for some reason, they don’t follow through. So she does the last thing she expected. She goes back home, where she hasn’t been in a very long time. When she gets back home, she gets word that her mother, who didn’t want her around, is deathly ill.

It’s hard for me to believe this woman has failed in her life. She had a lot of dreams, but nothing seemed to work out for her. She falls back on helping her brother and his wife take care of their ailing mother, but she wants something better in her life. She starts to befriend the caregiver who is also around sometimes and her nieces and nephews, but she feels lost even though she’s around her family. I sometimes feel this way, except I’m not a woman. 

The writer and director, Andrea Pallaoro, seems to know her way around this subject matter. I’m sure it hits home for her. The cast she assembles is a good one, and Patricia Clarkson plays the ill mother. She isn’t the best at this role as other actors, but she does as well as she can. Playing this sort of role isn’t an easy one for many actors because of the type of subject matter. Anthony Hopkins gave everything he had, and Clarkson isn’t up to par with that. 

Trace Lysette has been in a few notable television Disclosure and Transparent shows and one notable film Hustlers. Other than that she hasn’t been with many people. The titular character she plays in this film is a bit provocative and sexy. She uses her beautiful body to try to make some money but it hasn’t worked out very well for her. She is too pretty for everything she has to go to waste but it’s just not working out for her. Lysette gives it her all but the overall vision of the film fails her.

 The filmmaking style is one that has a lot of up-close shots of the actors; probably, they didn’t have much of a vision with the camera work. That’s what the cinematography is mainly, like without a real vision behind the look and feel of it. The other technical aspects weren’t much better either. I didn’t hear much of a score, and the setting of Los Angeles was pretty bland. I don’t know who this film was geared towards.

2 ½ stars

Dan Skip Allen