Monster

I'm guessing critics have "Lord of the Rings syndrome." This is where a film comes out that is really bad, but no one wants to be the first person to say how bad it is. So, everyone just copies. I love crime-dramas and true crime, but this movie was so bad, I wanted to walk out. And not just once, almost a dozen times. The only real star in this movie is the make-up applied to Charlize Theron. Is she good? Eh. Alright at best. I think she peaked in 2 DAYS IN THE VALLEY. She has mannerisms and voice down, but doesn't remain consistent. Her narrative voice-over appears to be her own voice, separating it from the rest of the film. Not much even seems to happen in this film. For a movie about a serial killer, there is miniscule violence. Maybe the director was just trying to push the gay angle. Who knows. All I know is that's 100+ minutes of my life, I wish I could have back.

Let me begin by saying that Charlize Theron gives the best female performance that I have ever seen on film. Theron deservedly won the Best Actress Oscar for her portrayal of serial killer Aileen Wuornos. I can not recall a performance, male or female, with such raw intensity. For those who may not know, MONSTER is the true story of Aileen Wuornos, a Florida prostitute who was executed a couple of years ago for killing men that picked her up on the highway. However, this is much, much more than a deranged serial killer flick. This film shows us, very convincingly, how a person can be led to a life of violence. Aileen had an awful childhood and an awful life. She was molested as a child by her father as well as other male relatives. As a child, she was surrounded by abuse, drug addiction, and domestic violence. Men horribly abused her as a child, and she began prostituting at age thirteen. In her later years, Aileen became a prostitute because it had been grilled into her head all her life that she was just a *. As MONSTER opens, Aileen's car breaks down and she wanders into what she doesn't know is a gay bar. Sitting alone at a table is lonely, confused lesbian Selby (Christina Ricci), who strikes up a conversation with the dirty, unkempt Aileen, who washes her hair in gas station sinks and uses the hand dryer to fix her hair. After many drinks, Aileen and Selby become close, and soon enter into an unhealthy, torrid, tragic love affair. Selby is naive and has always been sheltered, and she just wants genuine love. However, Aileen has issues that Selby doesn't see at first. There is certainly nothing positive or redeeming about serial killers, but you often feel yourself having a small bit of sympathy for Aileen because you realize why she kills the men who pick her up...SHE HATES MEN. Aileen has always hated men, and the only love scenes in which any tenderness and emotion is shown are the lesbian love scenes between Aileen and Selby. You also feel some sorrow for Aileen because she DOES want to improve herself, but has no way of knowing how to do so. There are scenes where Aileen applies for jobs because she really wants to do right, but she is always rejected. She applies for secretarial jobs at law offices and is laughed right out of the building while she curses and screams at everyone. She doesn't know any better because she has no social skills. In one of the most powerful scenes, Aileen is hitch hiking and is picked up by a genuinely nice man who offers to help her. He is sincere and doesn't want sex. He is a decent man who offers a helping hand, but Aileen just can not trust any man. She tells him she doesn't want to kill him, but because her previous killings are all over the news, she has to kill him so she won't be identified. Selby, meanwhile, learns of Aileen's murderous rampage and tearfully decides to go to the authorities. What makes this film so powerful is that this is A TRUE STORY. Aileen Wuornos had a miserable life. Life dealt her a s@@@@y hand. She never had a chance. Growing up, nobody....teachers, parents, relatives....reached out to her. You can't excuse a serial killer rampage, but this is the only "serial killer" film that I have seen that at least offers some reasoning behind the insanity. Again, this is intense, and Charlize Theron is AMAZING.

As a Floridian, I watched Aileen Wuornos' trials and news reports as they were unfolding. She was imprisoned and put to death less than five miles from my house. I didn't see the film until after Charlize Theron won the Oscar, and so much had been made of her gaining weight and becoming unattractive for the role I was downright cynical about why she won the award. That is, until I saw the movie! Charlize Theron's on screen portrayal of Aileen is so eerily realistic that you forget it's an actress behind some prosthetics: she WAS Aileen for the entire duration of the film. I kept saying,"Oh my gosh, oh my gosh" the whole time, as she had every single mannerism of Aileen's down to a T. It was the most impressive portrayal of a real person that I have ever seen, hands down. This woman deserved that Oscar! Although several people thought the film was sympathetic to Wuornos, I didn't see this as being the case. We saw that Aileen was manipulative, violent, abusive,and didn't take responsibility for her actions. We also saw her as a human being: vulnerable, traumatized, and lost. Despite the insight into Wuornos' humanity, we still knew she was beyond help. Christina Ricci also delivered a terrific performance as Shelby, and was a perfect complement to Charlize-as-Aileen's abrasiveness.This was the best film of 2003, IMO.

Having taken a slight interest in the story of Aileen Wuornos, I was appalled by "Monster" because it does no justice to her story. To be fair, Charlize Theron gives a good performance as Wuornos, but after seeing Nick Broomfield's "The Selling of a Serial Killer" (1992) I realized just how biased and dishonest the film adaptation "Monster" is. Patty Jenkins does have a clear agenda to push which is this: Aileen wasn't a bad person, it was men that made her that way because she was abused by them. It's true, yes, but that doesn't negate what she did -- she still murdered innocent people and "Monster" really tries to gloss over some of this. Second of all, my big problem with the film is that it spends so much unnecessary time on the relationship between Aileen and her lover, played by Christina Ricci. It's true, they were involved together, but the movie stops midway to focus on the trials and tribulations -- trying to add depth to the characters -- and fails (or at least it did for me) because I soon lost interest in the "love story." In fact this is yet another case of the film glossing over events -- most of the stuff involving the two in this movie is completely made up. I would have preferred a less biased viewpoint on the matter. Although Broomfield's documentary is also very biased (on Channel 4 he even provided a post-chapter where he explains Aileen was just troubled and not aware of what she was doing) it is far more truthful to Aileen's story. Her story is a true American tragedy and to see it glossed over by Hollywood like this, added on top of lies and a biased agenda, is really a shame. A lot of people are going to disagree with me on this but I can't hide my dislike for "Monster" and the disappointment I suffered after seeing it.