Nigel P This solemn Norwegian gem features Anna (Noomi Rapace) who has been relocated to a flat following an incident with her abusive husband and father of eight year old Anders (Vetle Qvenild Werring). She exists in a constant state of neurosis and is monitored by two Child Welfare Officers. To relieve her worry that somehow her husband will find them and inflict further harm, she buys a baby monitor so she can listen to her son even when he is in another room. Sometimes, she hears the sounds of a child being beaten on the monitor, but Anders is sleeping soundly … so where do these sounds come from? She befriends shy Helge (Kristoffer Joner), whose mother is on a life-support machine in hospital, and they begin a fragile relationship. And yet the disturbing incidents continue; the male welfare officer Ole takes an unprofessional interest in Anna, and the woman she believes she has heard on the monitor appears to drown her son at the picturesque nearby lake Anna often visits to relax. Anna dives into the water to rescue the boy. The next thing she knows, she is in hospital.Anders invites a friend round, but we don't get to know his name. The two lads share a kinship, and it appears the friend has been beaten by his mother. Whilst joining Anna for supper one evening, Helge meets the nameless boy and assumes it to be Anders, whom he hasn't met. He sees bruises on the boy's arm and assumes Anna has been beating him.The final straw in Anna's punishing ordeal is when Ole tells her that Anders' father has gained custody of the youngster. She stabs Ole with the kitchen scissors, takes Anders and leads him to the open window, high above ground level. Helge bursts into the flat, past the bloody body of what actually turns out to be the caretaker, and gets to the bedroom just in time to see Anna and her son plummet to the ground below.Only Anna's body is found. It transpires Anders died two years ago, and so did his abusive father. Everything else we have seen was a mixture of the truth and the product of Anna's ruined mind.Poor Helge. An honest, decent man who witnesses it all, and loses first his mother, and then Anna. As he reads a final child's poem to Anna by her death bed, we see visions of her and Anders strolling through a summer's forest and sitting by the lake, happier than we've ever seen them. This is either a flashback to glad times, or a snapshot of where the tragic blighters are now; somewhere better.This is a tremendous, bleak, intimate film that packs a punch with some very intense acting and a haunting incidental score.

peefyn Both Noomi Rapace and Kristoffer Joner are acting the hell out of this movie. What great performances! It's too bad the the story isn't quite up to par. I liked the premise, a mom and child placed in protection to avoid being in reach of the child's abusive father. Because of what they have been through, the mother is over protective of her child. Kristoffer Joner plays a guy working at a nearby electronics outlet.I'm sure the ending they had in mind was good, and that they were going for the kind of movie that you end up discussing afterwords with who ever you were watching it. But it all ends up executed in a confusing manner. I like some of the mystery, but not how it is presented.

ereinion This disturbing drama-thriller is almost like a sequel to "Daisy Diamond", the Danish shocker from 2007. They both have Noomi Rapace in the leading role and she carries most of the film. She again plays an unstable single mother, but this time of a grown boy, not a baby girl. And the setting is kinda the same, the desolate and tall block apartment complex and the empty lane which she is constantly shown walking. They are meant to symbolize her own loneliness and alienation. And this is a hint to what ultimately is revealed as a great surprise in the end.This is a typical Scandinavian/North European picture which focuses on the plight of single mothers who have been victims of their husbands' rage and physical abuse. Anna (Rapace) moves in to a new place, the big apartment block, after she and her little son have been victimized by her husband. She feels alone and a little afraid in their apartment. She at first makes her son sleep in the same bed as her, but as he soon gets tired of it, she buys a baby call device and puts it next to his bed so she can sleep assured nothing will happen to him without her hearing it. One night she hears loud screams that sound like they are coming from a boy. She rushes to his son's room but founds him sound asleep and nobody is there. She then goes to the trade center nearby where she got the device and talks with the salesman about it. He tells her that her own baby call must have picked up the signal from another baby call that is somewhere near her. This only makes her more anxious to find out whose baby call that may be and which child that makes such hair-raising noise in the middle of night. In the meantime, the salesman (played by Kristofer Joner), a single man who is just as lonely as she, develops an affection for her and tries to get closer to her. But it gets even worse for Anna as she has problems sleeping and finds herself waking up at the oddest places and starts to hallucinate of a place which doesn't exist.The acting is very good by the two main actors, Rapace and Joner, who are both very believable and effective in their roles. Joner looks his part and Rapace looks her part. There is very little satisfaction to find in this film except for the suspense and dramatic performances. And the way it ends doesn't do much to amend that. In other words, it is a very dark, haunting and bleak picture which is meant to capture life at its cruelest. Almost the whole movie is like one big constant nightmare and there are a few elements of Polanski's apartment trilogy there obviously. The mother-child vs evil father or evil male entity which persecutes them is a familiar motif in such films. And as such the movie doesn't really break any new ground. It is just a passable dark drama, something along the lines of Dark Water, but there is nothing supernatural about it. I give it a 6. 6+

Sanjna Po Noomi Repace, who in my opinion is one of the most interesting actors out there, brought me to this Swedish thriller. Let me just say before anything, that this isn't one of those in-your face thrillers, or even particularly fast paced and racy. It's one of those films that have the really dense stories, that most people can't guess the end to. 'The Monitor' shows Noomi Repace playing Anna, a overprotective, paranoid mother, coming out of a traumatic experience with her husband. Her primal instinct is to protect her son, but there's something unusual going on around her, and the disturbed Anna can't quite wrap her finger around it. The acting in this film is extremely natural, and its well written. The suspense is worth the final reveal, and is quite rewarding to those who patiently sit through the entire film. If you're a fan of story-oriented thrillers, this film is worth watching once.