blistering performance, wrenching film...

Rating: 10/10 (19 July 2004)

C. Theron's performance, as you may have gathered already, is one of true magnificence. And the film isn't bad either... Perhaps it's because I'm a sucker for stories that truly celebrate love, but this film gutted me. While the story is unconventional, it's not irrational. The love, more than the romance, between Theron's Wournos and Ricci's Wall is towering. The movie grabs you and pins you down, showing you pure desperation and madness, intertwined with adoration and the desire to be loved, which is the world's single most powerful emotion. As has been said before, and I quote Moulin Rouge, "The greatest thing you'll ever learn is to love and be loved in return." This is what makes Monster so difficult to watch. It's not the murder scenes or the graphic sexuality, which are not for the faint of heart, that make this film so rough, but the open and grand presentation of desperate love.
This one is worth more than its weight in platinum.