Mr Monk's Last Case has a Surprising Tie to Classic Christmas Movie

Mr. Monk and Mr. Bailey have some notes to compare.

By Russ Burlingame

Mr. Monk's Last Case: A Monk Movie released last week, bringing star Tony Shalhoub and company back to the roles for the first time in more than a decade. Based on the USA Network series that ran from 2002 until 2009, the movie opens on a version of Adrian Monk (Shalhoub) who has been emotionally scarred by the toll of COVID. His OCD and fear of germs may have taken over the zeitgeist in 2020, but being in good company doesn't help much when you're miserable. Speaking with Shalhoub and series creator Andy Breckman about the movie, Breckman said that he drew inspiration from It's a Wonderful Life.

Frank Capra's Christmas classic, of course, opens with George Bailey suicidal, believing that the world would be better off without him, before he is shown how wrong he is. In Mr. Monk's Last Case, the detective is called back into action by someone he definitely knows needs his help -- but just being a useful part of society isn't enough to shake him out of his funk.

"Just dramatically, it would be very challenging to have Monk start off in a positive, happy place, because I don't know where you would go from that. I was encouraged by Frank Capra's It's A Wonderful Life. That was the template that I used when I was writing this piece. That was about a character, Jimmy Stewart, who is in a pretty dark place in that movie, but the movie ended up being very positive and life-affirming, and my feeling was, if Frank Capra could do it, we could do it half as well."

"And we did," joked Shalhoub. "I think we reached that."

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Per the official synopsis, in Mr. Monk's Last Case: A Monk Movie, Monk returns to solve one last, very personal case involving his beloved stepdaughter Molly, a journalist preparing for her wedding.

Based on the Emmy Award-winning, critically acclaimed, fan-favorite USA Network comedy from creator, writer, and executive producer Andy Breckman, director and EP Randy Zisk, EP David Hoberman and starring and executive produced by Tony Shalhoub (MONK, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel), the new MONK movie will reunite with original stars Ted Levine (On Becoming a God in Central Florida, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom), Traylor Howard (MONK, Boston Common), Jason Gray-Stanford (Percy Jackson and The Olympians, The Painter), Melora Hardin (The Office, Transparent) and Hector Elizondo (Pretty Woman, Chicago Hope).

Mr. Monk's Last Case: A Monk Movie is now streaming on Peacock.

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