Themes: Mythical Creatures, Fish Out of Water, Dangerous Attraction
Main Cast: Sarah Polley, Robert Burke, Helen Mirren, Julie Christie, Baltasar Kormákur
Release Year: 2001
Country: US
Run Time: 101 minutes
MPAA Rating: R
Plot
Beauty meets the Beast, and neither is sure just what to make of the other, in a modern-dress comic variation on the ancient folk tale, written and directed by the eternally offbeat Hal Hartley. Beatrice (Sarah Polley) works with the office staff of a sleazy tabloid TV news show, run by a harridan producer (Helen Mirren) eager for something other than the usual spate of violent crimes and natural disasters that are her show's bread and butter. The producer sends her camera crew to Iceland in search of something new and unusual, and they certainly find it when they run across a village that has its own monster (Robert John Burke), a large part-mammal and part-lizard with a short temper and habit of killing people who get on his nerves. The show's camera crew (including Beatrice's boyfriend) doesn't survive their first encounter with the monster, and Beatrice is sent to find out what happened to them. En route to Iceland, Beatrice's plane crashes into the waters off the coast, and while she survives the accident, a group of unsympathetic locals decide (after a few drinks too many) to take her to the monster's lair, where a grim fate doubtless awaits her. Except that the monster is a bit depressed and Beatrice isn't in the mood to take any guff from anyone; after the monster wonders aloud why folks aren't as frightened of him as they once were, he asks Beatrice to help him find Dr. Artaud (Baltasar Kormakur), a mad scientist who might be able to cure him of the curse of eternal life. No Such Thing received its world premiere at the 2001 Cannes Film Festival, where it was screened as part of the Un Certain Regard series. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
No Such Thing is a film that was released in 2001 and was directed by Hal Hartley. It tells the story of Beatrice (Sarah Polley), a tabloid journalist whose fiancé is killed by a monster in Iceland. She ends up falling in love with the monster in the end. The monster is immortal, but longs to die. Beatrice helps him achieve this by contacting a scientist who can destroy matter painlessly.
Robert Burke told Fangoria Magazine that he decided to take a day and walk around downtown NYC- in his monster make-up. He said that no one really gave him a second glance.
A speech by the Scientist before killing the monster.
But what will the world be like without monsters? These monsters are ourselves, our hope and fear. We created it and it killed us in our sleep. We saw that we were human. It does not remember its beginning because it began with us, to be formed with our history. We are so cruel I think, not that we killed him but that we put this responsibility on his ugly shoulders in the first place. He did not ask for it. We are so good at this. We talk things into reality to convince ourselves that we exist and now the most vicious blow of all to kill a creature by proving to him he is a figment of our own imagination.
