Aileen Carol Wuornos (2/29/59 - 10/9/02)

Rating: 9/10 (16 January 2005)

This movie is not for everyone. It's hard to take & depressing. It's the story of a lost, tortured soul who was certainly "walking wounded". She was a serial killer & by all accounts only the first killing was justified & the lowlife deserved his fate. The film tells the story of Aileen (Lee) Wuornos without justifying what she did. The viewer actually gets to know her as a human being & I sympathized with her to a degree. It's the humanization of her that made me sympathize with her. Otherwise, she'd just be another nut-job/hooker/murderer who also got what she deserved. There are some insights into her here & there in the film (molested as a child, raped by a family "friend", beaten by her father who later committed suicide, discarded by her siblings, became a prostitute at 13 to survive, battered by partners & cops, alcoholism etc.) that make you feel that this somewhat powerless & uneducated woman actually became addicted to killing once she started because it was a release of anger & hatred that had built up inside of her for so many years. I also felt sympathy for her because she wanted to "go straight" & work but she set her sights too high & was knocked down once again. Granted, the attempt to straighten her life out was mostly out of fear of being caught after she killed the first guy in self defense, but she also loved Selby & possibly wanted more "nomalcy" for them as a couple in that respect as well. I know the movie takes liberties with some facts. For example, the real Selby was not a whiny, naive nineteen year old, but a big bruiser who enjoyed instigating & egging Wuornos on into fights with others. Charlize Theron deserved her Oscar for portraying & transforming herself into this complex woman with so much passion & dedication.