Review: Monster
April 20, 2004; Loew's Copley Place #3
* * * 1/2 (out of four)
There aren't many movies that can get away with making an audience completely uncomfortable with the action onscreen, and still have the same audience saying it was a good movie as they leave. The Passion of the Christ has proven to be such a movie for most people; they fidget and squirm throughout, and still they walk out with nothing but compliments for the film and its power. I don’t know… maybe if there weren’t so many holes… but anyway. Monster threatened with a similar power and with the modern idea that if the lead character is flawed, then it must be a story worth telling. Keeping the movie on track is an excellent, Oscar-worthy performance by Charlize Theron and solid, engaging support from Christina Ricci.
Theron plays Aileen Wuornos, a woman who started life on the wrong side of the tracks, and was never able to cross over. We find her working as a highway prostitute in Florida, getting whatever money she can from semi drivers for doing whatever they might want. One night in a bar, she meets Selby (Ricci), a young woman who is immensely insecure about her blooming homosexuality. Wariness from a hard life drives Aileen’s initial reaction, but she’s soon drawn to Selby’s quiet manner, and finds in the girl an affection that she’s never felt from anyone, which is both wonderful and difficult, because she has no idea how to react to it. The girls leave together, traveling across Florida using whatever money Aileen can make from her encounters. When a particularly aggressive customer beats and rapes Aileen, she kills him in retaliation; understandable, I’d say, but it puts the idea that this is acceptable in her broken and confused mind. After an unsuccessful attempt to straighten out her life, Aileen takes to killing every man who becomes less than cordial in their encounter, passing off the murders as acceptable side effects spouting from her ability to provide for her and Selby. Inevitably, Selby gets sucked into this downward spiral, and the two end up in a slow chase across the state as police release sketches and information about them, driving Aileen more towards a breaking point, and hitting Selby with the cold realization that, love or no love, she got much more than she bargained for.
This is not a movie that is easy to sit through; an early scene in which Aileen is raped is almost traumatizing at best, it is so lacking in any form of humanity. In another scene, a too-far-gone Aileen comes across an elderly gentleman who is genuinely willing to help the woman, but that isn’t something that Aileen is prepared to deal with if it comes from a man. His needless death is an eye-opening turning point to the film, when it really sinks in that this woman is hopelessly lost. It’s no excuse for Aileen’s actions, but it makes you wonder about what kind of society could allow a person to reach these depths without a single helping hand.
Theron’s performance was astounding. Theron plays two sides to Aileen; on one, she is completely disconnected with reality, justifying killing these men at first by assuming they intend to rape her, whether that is justified or not, and then later with the idea that if their deaths provide for her and Selby, then the murder is justified. On the other side, she plays off a sense of wonder in her relationship with Selby, marveling at the notion that despite everything she’s done and all the horrors of her life, someone loves her. In the same moment that the love exists and is comfortable for both characters, there’s a sense of newness for both of them – for Selby to find this love from a woman, and for Aileen to find it at all.
I didn’t walk out with any sense of sympathy for Wuornos, at least not about her conviction and execution (Florida executed her in 2002 after twelve years on death row). She murdered seven people, and regardless of circumstance, that needs to be dealt with. If anything, I left with this haunted feeling that this woman was just one of many. This is a true story, and I know it’s not the only one like it. That Wuornos fought back may have been unique, but her situation is not. That there are people – women, men, and children – that can slip through the cracks from day one like this… it’s frightening and disheartening.
What this film lacks is any sense of release. This is a grim, gritty, ugly film, and there are no moments to get away from it. It could very easily overwhelm a viewer from the sheer brutality that this woman faced every day, and nowhere was there any room to breathe. That may have been what writer/director Patty Jenkins was going for, but with no breaks in the intensity, viewers may miss her points and simply find the movie offensively oppressive. Another minor problem is that I could never quite figure out how old Ricci’s Selby was supposed to be; there was no clear distinction, and since Ricci could still pass for seventeen in some places, it was disorienting to see her being served alcohol openly without any explanation.
Charlize Theron gives an amazing portrayal of Wuornos, showing a deeply conflicted woman battered physically and emotionally, and proved to me that she deserved the little gold man she took home in February. Christina Ricci fills out the other half of the relationship, and pulls a real person out of what could be just a ball of insecurities. Fair warning: this is a dark, harshly severe movie with no relief until the house lights come up, but if you can disconnect yourself from the onscreen horrors for a few moments, you’ll see a story of humanity’s worst nightmare: individuals cast aside with no ability to crawl out of the hole into which they’ve been thrown. There is certainly a message here that needs to be heard.
April 20, 2004; Loew's Copley Place #3
* * * 1/2 (out of four)
There aren't many movies that can get away with making an audience completely uncomfortable with the action onscreen, and still have the same audience saying it was a good movie as they leave. The Passion of the Christ has proven to be such a movie for most people; they fidget and squirm throughout, and still they walk out with nothing but compliments for the film and its power. I don’t know… maybe if there weren’t so many holes… but anyway. Monster threatened with a similar power and with the modern idea that if the lead character is flawed, then it must be a story worth telling. Keeping the movie on track is an excellent, Oscar-worthy performance by Charlize Theron and solid, engaging support from Christina Ricci.
Theron plays Aileen Wuornos, a woman who started life on the wrong side of the tracks, and was never able to cross over. We find her working as a highway prostitute in Florida, getting whatever money she can from semi drivers for doing whatever they might want. One night in a bar, she meets Selby (Ricci), a young woman who is immensely insecure about her blooming homosexuality. Wariness from a hard life drives Aileen’s initial reaction, but she’s soon drawn to Selby’s quiet manner, and finds in the girl an affection that she’s never felt from anyone, which is both wonderful and difficult, because she has no idea how to react to it. The girls leave together, traveling across Florida using whatever money Aileen can make from her encounters. When a particularly aggressive customer beats and rapes Aileen, she kills him in retaliation; understandable, I’d say, but it puts the idea that this is acceptable in her broken and confused mind. After an unsuccessful attempt to straighten out her life, Aileen takes to killing every man who becomes less than cordial in their encounter, passing off the murders as acceptable side effects spouting from her ability to provide for her and Selby. Inevitably, Selby gets sucked into this downward spiral, and the two end up in a slow chase across the state as police release sketches and information about them, driving Aileen more towards a breaking point, and hitting Selby with the cold realization that, love or no love, she got much more than she bargained for.
This is not a movie that is easy to sit through; an early scene in which Aileen is raped is almost traumatizing at best, it is so lacking in any form of humanity. In another scene, a too-far-gone Aileen comes across an elderly gentleman who is genuinely willing to help the woman, but that isn’t something that Aileen is prepared to deal with if it comes from a man. His needless death is an eye-opening turning point to the film, when it really sinks in that this woman is hopelessly lost. It’s no excuse for Aileen’s actions, but it makes you wonder about what kind of society could allow a person to reach these depths without a single helping hand.
Theron’s performance was astounding. Theron plays two sides to Aileen; on one, she is completely disconnected with reality, justifying killing these men at first by assuming they intend to rape her, whether that is justified or not, and then later with the idea that if their deaths provide for her and Selby, then the murder is justified. On the other side, she plays off a sense of wonder in her relationship with Selby, marveling at the notion that despite everything she’s done and all the horrors of her life, someone loves her. In the same moment that the love exists and is comfortable for both characters, there’s a sense of newness for both of them – for Selby to find this love from a woman, and for Aileen to find it at all.
I didn’t walk out with any sense of sympathy for Wuornos, at least not about her conviction and execution (Florida executed her in 2002 after twelve years on death row). She murdered seven people, and regardless of circumstance, that needs to be dealt with. If anything, I left with this haunted feeling that this woman was just one of many. This is a true story, and I know it’s not the only one like it. That Wuornos fought back may have been unique, but her situation is not. That there are people – women, men, and children – that can slip through the cracks from day one like this… it’s frightening and disheartening.
What this film lacks is any sense of release. This is a grim, gritty, ugly film, and there are no moments to get away from it. It could very easily overwhelm a viewer from the sheer brutality that this woman faced every day, and nowhere was there any room to breathe. That may have been what writer/director Patty Jenkins was going for, but with no breaks in the intensity, viewers may miss her points and simply find the movie offensively oppressive. Another minor problem is that I could never quite figure out how old Ricci’s Selby was supposed to be; there was no clear distinction, and since Ricci could still pass for seventeen in some places, it was disorienting to see her being served alcohol openly without any explanation.
Charlize Theron gives an amazing portrayal of Wuornos, showing a deeply conflicted woman battered physically and emotionally, and proved to me that she deserved the little gold man she took home in February. Christina Ricci fills out the other half of the relationship, and pulls a real person out of what could be just a ball of insecurities. Fair warning: this is a dark, harshly severe movie with no relief until the house lights come up, but if you can disconnect yourself from the onscreen horrors for a few moments, you’ll see a story of humanity’s worst nightmare: individuals cast aside with no ability to crawl out of the hole into which they’ve been thrown. There is certainly a message here that needs to be heard.
posted by Matt S. at
11:56 PM
