Mr. Monk's Last Case: A Monk Movie

I have been struggling with severe depression recently and have had dark thoughts, and to watch a movie with a person feeling so sad and unworthy of love and being proven WRONG is a tonic I needed. I was never as far-gone as Adrian Monk is here. But I relate to his struggles because I feel despair as well, and no matter what reassurance you get from friends, it's not always enough.

I wasn't crazy about the ending with the ghosts. I think it turned the show supernatural when Trudy's ghost's reality was always up for debate. But it's the thing that pulled Adrian through as well as that poor dog.

I have to confess, when Bell breaks down in tears, and confesses he retired a couple of months ago, and Adrian is his only client because he loves him so much I cried. I'm crying now as I'm typing this. This is ME searching for the fabled fictional "Good Hurt", and this is the show giving it to me and earning every drop of my tears. It means SO much to me.

Monk was a unique show for being basic cable with absolutely no edge to it. It was essentially a "cozy mystery" show. The violence and ideas in this movie were a little bleaker than normal, but the franchise is still refreshingly tame and easy to take.

When Randy gives his theory about the bridge being lowered I wondered how the guys dresses himself in the morning. Sharona probably does it for him.

Monk was a show that was more emotionally resonant than you could ever reasonably expect from the premise. I guess either it's been so long I forgot that about it, or the movie simply presses the raw nerve harder than the series did. I suspect it's probably the second thing, but if I had remembered the first thing, I might not have been as surprised as I was.

I noticed everyone took the wipes. After Covid, everybody turned into Monk.

By the way, Monk would be masking right now. You can't read Tony Shalhoub's performance if he does, but it's still out of character.

Do I have any complaints? The how-to solve with the tape measure was sort of clever (and the dual role of Richard Kind playing twin funeral directors was fun) but that specific conceit didn't really matter when we knew he was the guy all along and we got the general idea he screwed with the thing at the time, just not the specifics. While it is true Monk often fingers the correct suspect early on, the show isn't exactly Columbo. Part of the mystery solve is revealed to the audience by Monk himself. We don't have the same proof we did of knowing how and why Columbo was always right. There should still be surprise twists in this type of cozy mystery. And really, there is none of that here. As an emotional character study the movie knocks it out of the park. As an actual mystery, the film's professed genre? It's pretty weak.

Also how did the guy know which brand of tape measure to replace and fake? It seems like an awful lot of unneeded effort. He killed the other guy with a mail bomb. This was far more complicated than it needed to be.

But still, I needed that. Adrian Monk is needed. And he always will be. The woman is still in the freezer. It's an imperfect metaphor for how needed we all are, but damn it, even if I can't describe how and WHY it works, it does! And that's enough. I loved this. 4 1/2 stars.