Sympathy For The Devil.

Rating: 7/10 (5 January 2006)

A great little film with a power-house central performance by Charlize Theron as Aileen Wuornos, one of America's female serial killers.
The film is essentially a love story, as Aileen meets and falls for Selby (Christina Ricci) - a young girl who is estranged from society and her immediate family. This infatuation takes place whilst Aileen is beginning to murder her victims and Selby seems to ignore any tell tale signs of the murders taking place - the film shows Aileen hiding this from Selby for most of their relationship. Making Selby an innocent party in this portrayal of the events.
Most Serial Killer flicks are driven by the killer being hunted by the detective, but Patty Jenkins (writer and director) moves away from this and progresses the movie by character development, emotional insight and empathy - it's a very female approach and works extremely well with this story. I think a male director may have taken a different slant with this subject matter, both in the character motivation and lesbian aspects of the movie, but Patty's approach softens these themes and lets the characters come through, but still leaving them interesting and slightly ambiguous.
Patty and Charlize have a lot of sympathy for Aileen and this shows in the screen treatment - even the title demonstrates this - here "Monster" refers to a Ferris Wheel and Aileen's fondest childhood memory, rather than the human "Monster" that she became. It's a brave move as a lot of the Genre's fans may be expecting a gore or chase movie, and this gives a very human portrayal of Aileen Wuornos, exploring a lot of her abusive back-ground and examining the potential inherent violence in prostitution. She also shows regret and reserve when the murders are not as a result of direct violence against her. The "serial killer mythos" is also de-glamorised in this instance, both in appearance (with Charlize Theron made up with a blotchy skin condition and shaved eye-brows) and in portrayal - Alieen is shown as a regular working woman trying to make life's circumstances work for her, not the cold-blooded reclusive ultra-intelligent sociopath from most of these flicks.
It's a sad little tale, and you feel that the cards were really stacked against Aileen, but there must be thousands of people in exactly the same circumstances who do not end up as serial murderers. Well worth a watch.