Anne Hathaway seems far from her Oscar winning role in Les Miserables in her upcoming movie Colossal. She plays Gloria, a hard partying woman who discovers she has some kind of telepathic link with a huge monster that is busy trashing Seoul, South Korea. “A monster mash-up of indie comedy and kaiju carnage, it’s like “Pacific Rim” except with dive bars instead of multi-story mech suits” CNET says. The film is now playing at Sundance, where it earned a B+ mark.

“I would have loved this movie and felt so cool knowing it existed,” Hathaway said last fall on the website IndieWire, from its big debut at the Toronto International Film Festival. “I did this one for my 16-year-old self.”

On the site, Hathaway, who is no stranger to big studio productions, embraced the fact that this rather quirky effort was an indie production. With an independent movie, you may not get the huge marketing push and financial resources, but you also don’t get big studio interference. An indie film also isn’t constrained by “safe” creative, artistic decisions. “In those circumstances you’re sometimes encouraged to make fear-based decisions,” Hathaway said on IndieWire. “In this one, it just felt very free spirited, and we were working with an amazing company, Voltage, that trusted their filmmaker.”

Colossal doesn’t fit any of the usual Hollywood ready-made formats, either. Is it an action movie? Is it a rom-com? Referencing its Toronto Film Festival premiere, Hathaway added “This movie doesn’t have a clear genre, and I think the audience trusted that and understood that it’s okay to laugh and go to a more emotional, powerful place. They don’t negate each other.”

Colossal also stars Jason Sudeikis, Dan Stevens, Austin Stowell, and Blake Nelson. It opens April 7 in the U.S.