Killings and love

Rating: 7/10 (22 June 2004)

Charlize Theron displays a stunning performance in Monster, that has doubtless shocked her fans, more used to her baby doll image in The Devil's Advocate or The Astronaut's Wife. She reveals an exquisite talent as she portrays Aileen Wournos, a prostitute that becomes a serial killer (and though many made this assertion, she is not at all as horrendous as shallowly one might say). Feminists will be pleased - the prostitute falls in love with a young lesbian (a sweet and convincing Christina Ricci) and, furthermore, she reaches the conclusion that she has constantly been raped. But it's more than that - Monster is also a film about love, about loneliness and the need to outcome it. For Aileen, life has always been a fiasco and meeting Selby she has the impression she can still put back the pieces in her life and follow her dream (the American dream, naturally - she even says at one moment that she wanted to become the president of the United States); for Selby, running away with Aileen is a strange Bildungsreise, rather a failure than a success (nonetheless, this is arguable, as it depends on the meaning we give to the terms "failure" and "success"). The reasons that constrain Theron's character to turn into a serial killer are a mixture between the Greek tragedy's Moira and the Macbethian choice of the modern individual. There are moments in life when one is not his/her own master anymore - but who is it then? But the paradox for some may be the fact that among all the crimes and blood and debauchery this film is about love and about the fact that love has nothing to do with our common cleavage of Good and Evil.