The American Monster

Rating: Null/10 (4 November 2004)

This is the desperate story of a woman whose child-abused background led her to teenage prostitution and a disgust with herself and humankind before she reached 30, and then, desperate to keep the spurious affection and shabby love, however ill-judged and unbalanced, of an immature, lonely, and rather stupid lesbian, she turns into a serial killer. Based on the life of Aileen Wournos, Patty Jenkins and Charlize Theron have achieved not only a film of excellence and importance, but of a depth and darkness that takes your breath away. Charlize Theron's brilliant, bravura performance, Christine Ricci's impressive supporting acting, Patty Jenkins's direction, and the structure and script, make Monster an impressive film. Despite the depressing themes, all the more accentuated by sad motel rooms, low-life bars, and dismal highway nights when Wournos is seeking clients - and victims - the film is so strong on characterisation and with a script which rings true at every stage (despite some difficulty in understanding the mumbled dialogue between the two leads at times), it leaves a lasting impression of ineffable sadness.
The film works on many levels and the bottom line is a thorough indictment of the dark side of American society. The monster is American society which can produce, through ignorance, prejudice, abusive behaviour, easy gun-license laws, the death penalty, and so on, the kind of people which Aileen and Selby become. They are extreme examples, of course, but the message is clear. And this film does have a message even though it takes pains not to be judgmental. At the centre of the film, when Aileen confesses her first murders to Selby, she says she is okay with the Lord, it is the society that brought her up, the politics and the religion, that made her what she was. If politics and religion justify so many killings, her own killings are justified (as a way of compensating for the rapes, abuse, the inevitable prostitution, leading to more abuse and rape and hatred of men as well as herself). Her logic may be questionable but her point is well made.
I have noticed a recent succession of movies which focus on lesbian killers and the lesbian lead always ends up badly. Is it no longer valid to make film with a heterosexual female aggressor? Do those women have to remain passive, or victims, or at least equal with the men they are teamed with, but the lesbian is still 'the bad guy'. Thelma and Louise were not portrayed as lesbians (although they still had to come to a sticky end because of their crimes), but since then there is a noticeable trend in Hollywood to recognise these lesbian themed movies by giving the leading actresses Oscars - Frances McDormand in Fargo, Hilary Swank in Boys Don't Cry, and now Charlize Theron in Monster. (However, Monster knocks Boys Don't Cry and Fargo into insignificance.)
I wonder about the motives of Hollywood. The film world may pay lip-service to liberal tolerance of female homosexuality by recognising these actress performances, but the overall impression is that lesbians are not good people and I question that audiences will be encouraged to see lesbians as acceptable members of society, given the film examples in front of them.
So, to me, this film was not so much a feminist polemic as a depressing, but gripping, story about alienation and isolation, told in a way which can't help but leave the viewer asking a lot of questions about a society which creates such 'monsters'. Aileen is simply the flip-side of the American dream and, as such, turns the dream extremely sour.