a review by Jeffrey Overstreet
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Writer and director – Patty Jenkins.Director of photography – Steven Bernstein.
Editor – Jane Kurson and Arthur Coburn.
Music – BT.
Production designer – Edward T. McAvoy, Toni G.
Key makeup artist – Toni G.
Produced by Charlize Theron, Mark Damon, Clark Peterson, Donald Kushner and Brad Wyman.
Released by Newmarket Films.
111 minutes. Rated R.
STARRING: Charlize Theron (Aileen Wuornos), Christina Ricci (Selby Wall), Bruce Dern (Thomas), Scott Wilson (Horton), Pruitt Taylor Vince (Gene), Lee Tergesen (Vincent Corey) and Annie Corley (Donna Tentler).
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Free will comes with a cost. There are consequences to our actions. And we are responsible for the ramifications of our choices.
You see it on television all the time: People love to give excuses for their wrongdoing. “I had a hard childhood.” “I couldn’t help myself.” “Hey, I’m a man, and that’s the way men are.” “Hey, I’m a woman,” etc. For a nation that trumpets the virtues of freedom, we sure are quick to deny our own freewill when it gets us in trouble.
Sure, there are many forces at work behind each decision a person makes. Some of those forces are obvious, but some are lost in the subconscious: motives and provocations that were born somewhere in our formative years. Our childhoods DO influence our adulthood. Some of our behavior does stem from things we suffered early in life. Yet, that does not absolve us of paying the price for our mistakes.
It is important for us — for the sake of law and order and love — to protect our society by holding criminals responsible for their actions. But it is equally as important for us to avoid becoming self-righteous. We are all corrupt people. We all break the rules, behave selfishly, and commit quiet and “small” crimes behind closed doors. This is why Jesus asked us to love the sinner… but hate the sin.
Monster is the story of a sinner and her sins. And it strikes just the right balance. It draws us to have sympathy for a damaged woman, but it also shows her as guilty… a woman who should be punished.
Patty Jenkins’ film claims to be the true story of Aileen Wuornos, a battered woman who became a prostitute and then a serial killer, slipping from rage, pain, and despair into madness.
Whether the film is true to the facts or not is open to debate. A new documentary on Wuornos’ life by Nick Broomfield reportedly paints a portrait of a much less rational person than the one shown here. Further, the film apparently does not include a full record of her crimes. Monster, like A Beautiful Mind, is a film that messes with the facts of the situation in order to make a more compelling story.
Nevertheless, the story we are told is riveting.
The script is well-balanced. Unlike other recent films about evildoers, it does not try to excuse the murderer for her sins. Nor does it ignore the fact that her terrible rage and eventual insanity were a fire that started in response to the hatred and cruelty of others. Aileen Wuornos was a woman who needed unconditional love. No one gave it to her. So she starved, and her starvation lead to erratic and devastating behavior.
Monster lays the blame for Wuornos’ crimes squarely at her feet. We watch as one act of self-defense gives this damaged soul a taste for blood. She is portrayed as killing men as a sort of abstract revenge for the way that men have treated her. Moreover, she wants their money, because she can’t seem to get a job anywhere else due to her reputation, appearance, and lack of education.
The Lord of the Rings gave us a riveting portrayal of Gollum, a selfish little man who became a monster through acts of selfishness and hate. The story led us to have sympathy for the poor creature, because we realized that we could become just like him if we gave in to our desires and baser appetites. Gollum’s mistake was to take Power into his own hands to do what he wished. It is the same mistake that Aileen Wuornos makes in Monster.
Unable to find love in a family or in a man, Aileen finds it in the arms of a young and misguided woman named Selby. Say what you like about homosexuality… this relationship is misguided and damaging. The film clearly paints the love of Aileen and Selby as a faulty union, and yet an almost inevitable mistake. They’re starving for love, and they will take what is offered them, no matter how corrupt.
To be fair, there is some measure of love between them… at least for a while. Aileen finally has someone to care for, the way she wishes she was cared for. And Selby finds someone who sees her, who pays attention to her, who appreciates her, whereas her parents see her as a failure and a fool. This viewer felt a lot of sympathy for the two women as they find solace in each other’s tenderness.
Fortunately, director Patty Jenkins uses great restraint in her portrayal of this flawed romance. She refuses to indulge the audience with any gratuitous sex scenes. There are a couple of scenes in which the two are passionately entwined, but these scenes are loaded with significance: they are some of the only examples of tenderness and care and compassion in the film. They explain why Aileen and Selby grow to mean so much to each other.
Monster is a brutal film, one I cannot recommend lightly. You will not enjoy the film. Aileen is beaten, raped, abused, nearly destroyed, and her response is a relentless stream of profanity and rage and violent revenge. It’s like watching animals attack and mutilate each other, fighting until one or both of them is dead. It hurts because you can’t intervene. You can’t show her the kind of love she needs. If only someone had come along who had shown her unconditional love. If only she had learned the peace that can come from believing that God will make things right after our time in this broken world is over.
While this is one of the darkest films you’re ever likely to see, it cannot be written off as agenda-driven or sensationalist. It is full of truth about the wages of sin and the problem of repaying violence with violence.
It is also a showcase for a performance that stands beside the greatest transforming acts of Daniel Day-Lewis and Robert De Niro. I never thought I’d be comparing Charlize Theron to such superior talents, but she deserves it here. I completely believed in her character. The gorgeous Charlize disappears into the increasingly vicious and broken Aileen. It is a fearless exhibition of surprising talent.
And yet, sometimes, method acting is its own worst enemy. Theron is very, very good, but her director is almost too aware of this. Thus, many scenes, many camera angles, many close-ups seem almost calculated to keep reminding us of just how extraordinarily Theron’s appearance has been changed. I found it difficult to concentrate on the story sometimes because I was so busy being startled by the forceful physicality of the performance.
Still, Theron deserves any honors she receives for this work. It must have been devastating work. Aileen is a character who suffers unflattering and disgraceful torment. I kept thinking of Lars Von Trier and his tendency to film stories about women forced into unimaginable suffering and humiliation. He’ll love Monster.
Christina Ricci plays Selby with an effective mix of adolescent insecurity, smirking sarcasm, and vulnerability. Her emotional breakdowns are a bit shrill, but her silences and quieter moments are quite powerful. Those large striking eyes have always spoken of a deep intelligence, even in her early Addams Family appearances.
The film is cast in an effectively bleak and grainy style, representing the back streets, truck stops, and taverns with a convincing layer of dust and grease. Jenkins shows a remarkable and admirable focus on storytelling. She never gets distracted. Every chapter of the film has its place.
Whatever your views on the death penalty, you will probably agree that Aileen Wuornos was justly removed from society. This is not an anti-death-penalty film, even though we hear Aileen arguing that she should not be executed. By that point, she is ranting against any kind of hope, any kind of truth. Clearly, she would have continued to wreak havoc on those who did not deserve her wrath.
This is, however, a film that should give us pause whenever a criminal is punished. We should always stop and realize that evil begets evil. Aileen’s actions were the rotten fruit that grew where evil was planted. And the evil was planted by an irresponsible family, by wicked lustful men, and by those who denied her the love she needed.
Monster is a tragic story, a journey so dark and painful that moviegoers should carefully consider whether they should buy a ticket. But it does speak the truth. We can learn from the experience.
