Dylan O'Brien has been dashing his way into our hearts for years, and in Love and Monsters,
he has a new reason to run - make that millions of creepy-crawly and razor-toothed reasons.
O'Brien stars in the new film as Joel Dawson, a young man who is enjoying the bliss of young
love with his girlfriend until the world descends into monster-filled madness.
Yep, after all of humanity finally comes together to use their nuclear weapons for the common
good of destroying an asteroid on a collision course with Earth, everything seems peachy
keen - that is, until the chemical compounds from the blast rain back down on Earth and
turn all of the world's cold-blooded creatures into giant man-eaters.
Whoops!
It's a dangerous new world, and unfortunately Joel has no survival skills to speak of.
In fact, any time there's even a hint of trouble, Joel is notorious for freezing up.
But there's one pivotal scene in his journey when everything changes.
First, though, we have to back up.
Love and Monsters doesn't just drop this particular scene on its viewers.
Like any great film, it works the right pieces into the story, building up to a satisfying
payoff.
By the time we get to this key scene in the film, Joel has already had a couple of very
harrowing encounters.
During one, he meets Boy, a dog who shows up just in the nick of time to save him.
Joel instantly bonds with his new four-legged friend.
He later gets saved by a pair of savvy travelers named Clyde and Minnow, who teach Joel a few
key tricks about how to hack it in the wild.
"Listen to your instincts out here.
They'll keep you alive."
"Yeah… what if I have terrible instincts?"
"You'll die."
Joel parts ways with them possessed of a renewed sense of hope, since he now knows there are
other people in the world who are nice and still able to make it in the wilderness.
Joel's surety is short lived, however, as he and Boy immediately run into trouble again
in a swamp.
With Boy cornered by a mutant centipede, it's up to Joel to finally step up and take action.
And this is the scene where O'Brien's performance truly shines.
As the insect encircles the helpless Boy, Joel remembers the last time he watched someone
he loves fall victim to an oversized creature like this - two someones, actually.
"Joel, get out of the car."
"Run, Joel. Run.
You can survive this.
I love you."
O'Brien's performance is truly gutting as he quietly relives that experience of utter
shock and instant heartbreak while grappling with the real-time likelihood of losing Boy
and his own life, too.
For the better part of a decade, Joel has been told by his companions that he can't
make it on his own, but the woman who loved him the most really believed that he could
survive.
O'Brien's eyes here make it clear that this memory has given Joel the jolt he needs to
stand up for himself and his dog.
"No."
Once Joel decides to fight back to save Boy, he quickly puts another learned lesson to
good use as he channels Minnow's "like a needle through water" shooting instruction to bring
the creature down.
And once he realizes that he has succeeded and Boy is mostly unharmed, O'Brien's fear
instantly becomes joy.
Joel has lived up to the potential his mother believed he had, and for the first time in
the film he has also saved himself.
We've seen O'Brien make a split-second decision to put himself into the action on-screen before.
One of the most unforgettable scenes in the 2014 adaptation of The Maze Runner, is when
O'Brien's character, Thomas, decides to throw himself into the maze to save his friends.
In this Love and Monsters scene, though, O'Brien's performance makes it clear that his victory
here is about more than just exterminating another big bug and being a hero.
The true victory he gains is getting rid of the part of himself that believed he couldn't
do those things at all, a realization that helps him through the rest of his perilous
journey.
Dylan O'Brien has always been great at portraying visceral emotional reactions even in otherworldly
situations, but here the actor effectively showcases both Joel's instinctual self-doubt
and the process of him replacing that feeling with courage.
And he never misses a step.
Thanks for watching.
Click the links in our video to watch more from Netflix Film Club.
Subscribe to our YouTube channel to get the latest exclusive videos.
Plus hit the bell so you don’t miss a single one.