Charlize Theron Excels In Monster

Rating: 10/10 (27 October 2012)

Model-turned-actress Charlize Theron leaves her glamorous image behind for this gritty drama,Monster wherein which she plays a disturbed prostitute who becomes a serial killer.This crime drama is about serial killer Aileen Wuornos, a former prostitute who was executed in Florida in 2002 for killing six men in the late 1980s and early 1990's. She was played by Theron, and her fictionalized lover, Selby Wall which was based on Wuornos' real-life companion Tyria Moore, was played by Christina Ricci.Bruce Dern,Lee Tergesen and Annie Corley co-star to play key supporting roles. The film was written and directed by Patty Jenkins and it was inspired by the true story of Wuornos, whose life and death was chronicled in two documentaries by filmmaker Nick Broomfield, Aileen Wuornos: The Selling of a Serial Killer, and Aileen: The Life and Death of a Serial Killer.
Aileen Wuornos was a woman who survived a brutal and abusive childhood in Michigan to become a thick-skinned but emotionally damaged adult. Homeless most of her life, Wuornos subsisted by working as a street prostitute; later, when she was in Florida, down to her last five dollars and pondering suicide, she stopped into a bar for a beer. There, Aileen met Selby Wall, a woman in her early twenties who had been sent to live with relatives after her Christian parents became aware of her lesbian lifestyle. Selby is immediately attracted to Aileen, and while Aileen tells Selby she's never been in a lesbian relationship, she soon finds herself equally infatuated with her. Selby runs away from her family and moves into a cheap hotel with Aileen, who initially pays the bills by hooking. However, as their money runs low and Aileen finds herself unable to land a regular job, tensions mount between the two. One night, after a john attacks her, Aileen pulls a gun and kills the man. Although her first murder can be categorized as self-defense, Aileen's loathing for the men who pay her for sex becomes so extreme that she begins killing her customers regardless of their behavior. Meanwhile, Selby slowly becomes aware of the full extent of her lover's instability and the bloody consequences of her actions.
Charlize Theron gives a searing, deglamorized performance as real life serial killer Aileen Wuornos, an intense, disquieting portrait of a profoundly damaged soul.This remarkable movie finds compassion for Wuornos but unflinchingly faces her brutal crimes; Theron expresses this woman's horrific life history without softening her terrifying, dead- eyed stare. This is a gripping, devastating performance, a physical and psychological transformation comparable to Robert DeNiro's in Raging Bull. The movie's moral and emotional complexity wouldn't succeed without this great performance but succeed it does, and it will stick with you for some time afterward.That is why it deserves the highest rating based on that reasons stated.