Engaging story, awesome talent, life-changing film

Rating: Null/10 (14 February 2004)

There was not one thing I didn't like about the movie MONSTER. There was not one thing about the story that I found fault with, and though it sounds negative, it's hard for me say that for most movies out there. Everyone starts out with a 10, but most have points categorically ticked off as everything unfolds. This movies stays at a 10 through every minute.
I won't comment on Charlize Theron's performance because starting off at a 10, this is what acting should be. Engrossing. I found no Charlize Theron in this character, because it was purely Aileen. Praising Charlize's performance is old-hat by now, and I'll just say that she will win the Oscar, again, because this is what acting should be. Enough of my not commenting about Charlize. She had better win the Oscar, or I'm coming after somebody.
This is a rough story, and I looked around curiously at the middle-aged to older-people in the theater and wondered if they really know what they were getting themselves in for. Personally, I couldn't bring myself to see the film the first week it was in our theater because I knew it would be devastating. And it was, and I loved it. Everyone else couldn't wait to leave the theater (though no one walked out, I will point out) and that seems a shame, but at the same time fitting, that everyone wanted to turn away from this ugly Truth that was being shown to them.
This is an absolute credit to the film and its creators. The story is so hard to watch, but you can't turn away from it. It seems to hold some essential information about the world around us, its hardness, the animals masquerading as human beings (which often resemble the ordinary Us), and those of us who are really in it for survival's sake because there is no viable alternative. These are the people we turn away from because it's all too painful to look at, and too painful to imagine if we were them. Nonetheless, I wish there were more stories like this out in the public. Perhaps it would shake us from the lush, much-too-busy-for-our-own-good lives. For now, we have the luxury of looking away.

This is a fantastic and brave movie. There is no feel-good about it, and it is fascinating and glorious in all of its ugliness.