None of the characters in Love is a Monster, from director and writer Neto Villalobos, have proper names. Viewers only know of them through their relationships with each other, like its protagonist Grandmother (Paulina Garcia). Grandmother is washing her hair at a working class salon, one of the few luxuries in post apocalyptic Costa Rica. The other delight in her life is her Granddaughter (Gloriana Vargas), whom she visits once a while. Those visits require supervisions and checkpoints because children need to be within a certain perimeter under government control. She becomes increasingly sick of having to watch where she takes her Granddaughter so they sneak out. During one of those outings, though, someone kidnaps the Granddaughter, forcing Grandmother to do what’s necessary.

There’s a lot of differences between our world and this one, one full of women and there are only three male characters. Otherwise, there are similarities between the world on the screen and the institutions us viewers live in. Class systems exist and the military still exists but they oppress their citizens and banks still exist. My only notes towards Love is a Monster involve certain little details about its fictionalized dystopia. The sticking point here is that the bankers aren’t talking to the Grandmother like they know why she needs to withdraw a lot of money. But again, it’s all about the push and pull. The film knows instinctively how Grandmother reacts and making those reactions make sense. When reuniting her family seems impossible.