‘Monolith’ Review: Friend of the Pod People

In “Monolith,” a single-setting thriller from the Australian director Matt Vesely, a recently disgraced investigative journalist attempts to salvage her career by accepting an ignoble and humiliating task: starting a podcast. She calls it “Beyond Believable,” and it’s a sort of spooky true-crime show about stranger-than-fiction mysteries — or rather, as she confesses in a moment of frustration, a “clickbait podcast” for listeners with “I.Q. levels below a lobotomized monkey.”

It’s a far cry from her broadsheet glory days, but the juicy intrigue of a big scoop proves seductive. When she lands on a story that involves mass hallucinations, bizarre artifacts and (possibly) alien body snatchers, she and her audience become obsessed. How far she will go to pursue that obsession is the driving force of the film.

Lily Sullivan plays this unnamed reporter with cagey, harried intensity, and she is more than capable of carrying this one-woman show. (The only other characters are voices on the phone.) Vesely makes good use of the single location — a large, sparely furnished modernist house in the Adelaide Hills of Australia — and he derives much tension from mundane things, such as a murky bathtub and slow-moving automatic curtains. The film is most effective when at its most granular, as Sullivan’s character carefully splices snippets of audio recordings and pores over research materials, scenes strongly reminiscent of Michelangelo Antonioni’s “Blow-Up” and Brian De Palma’s “Blow Out.”

But “Monolith” becomes harder to take seriously as the drama escalates, especially when Sullivan, finding herself in danger, charges on with an impassioned plea: “I have to continue this podcast!”

Monolith
Rated R for strong language, frightening situations and some disturbing podcasting. Running time: 1 hour 34 minutes. In theaters and available to rent or buy on most major platforms.