The critics were quite right this time

Rating: 8/10 (18 May 2005)

I think I don't have to tell you that the critics all loved this movie. It won some important prizes and for some of them that's already enough to praise it into the heavens. However, the only problem that I have with such movies is that I start expecting the impossible. Believing that this will be a movie like I've never seen before, I regularly end up being very disappointed in it. That's also the main reason why I waited a couple of years after the release before seeing this movie.
"Monster" has been based on the life of Aileen Wuornos, a prostitute who became one of America's first female serial killers. After having suffered from abuse and a drug addiction as a thirteen year old child, she has started to work as a highway prostitute. When she decides that it is time to end her life, she meets a young lesbian named Selby, with whom she starts a relationship. At first all seems to get better, but than she starts murdering her clients so she doesn't need to have sex with them in order to gain some money. For nine months everything seems to go smooth, but than she is arrested and convicted...
I have to admit that Charlize Theron did a very nice job and I'm convinced that her performance was worth the Oscar, but personally I think Christina Ricci was very good as well. Perhaps not everybody takes her very serious since her role in movies like the "Adams Family", but in "Monster" she proves to be a very fine actress. But some good acting isn't enough to save the entire movie of course, it needs a good story as well. Normally you could expect a very preachy and dramatic TV-movie like script, you know the kind that will only attempt to make you cry your eyes out. Not this time. This one has been written by someone who knew what she was doing. It doesn't judge and doesn't force you to swallow the opinion of the writer / director. It leaves you enough room to think and judge for yourself and I really appreciated that in this movie. All in all this is a very nice movie that certainly deserves to be watched. It's perhaps not the masterpiece some critics will make of it, but it certainly deserves a 7.5/10, perhaps even an 8/10.