The makeup of a monster

Rating: Null/10 (2 February 2004)

The title of this film lends itself to misinterpretation. It is all too easy to assume that the "Monster" in question is serial killer Aileen Wuornos, played by Charlize Theron. Yet the script makes it clear that the title refers to an amusement-park Ferris wheel that Aileen (or Lee) rode though it made her nauseous. The Ferris wheel is thus an image or a symbol of how humans are capable of doing unpleasant and downright nasty things to survive.
However, the title works on other levels as well. Lee might well be regarded as a monster. The label does not apply so much at the beginning of her killing spree. Her first murder might legitimately be considered a form of self-defence. Even a little later in her criminal career, a case could be made that she has become a kind of vigilante exacting justice for the hurt men have done to her since childhood. But, by the end of the film, Lee becomes a monster because she is presented with a moral choice -- to kill or not to kill someone who is innocent of wrongdoing toward her -- and deliberately chooses to kill. That is when her character crosses the line from hurt human to moral monster.
The label "monster" could also be applied to all the people who have taken advantage of Lee during the course of her life, from her father's friend who raped her at the tender age of eight, to the boys and men who have used her as a prostitute since the age of thirteen, to the one person Lee allowed herself to love -- a young lesbian, here called Selby and played by Christina Ricci. As Shakespeare would say, "This is the most unkindest cut of all." Selby, it seems, doesn't mind Lee hooking to earn cash and steal cars and help Selby escape her church-going, whitebread, mid-West American lifestyle. But when the chips are down, Selby is no more there for Lee than anyone else.
I found Ricci less than convincing in the role. Her wide-eyed naivete at the start of the film did not ring true for me. She also fails to convey totally why Selby might have been attracted to Lee, or how Selby is able to break free of the strictures of life with her straitlaced parents.
Much has been made of Theron's performance as Lee. Roger Ebert has even called her role one of the best in cinema, period. I will concede that Theron may deserve the Best Actress Oscar this year, but I think it is gilding the lily to go beyond that. Again, critics have raved about Theron's transformation from glamorous Hollywood star to plain Jane (shades of Nicole Kidman's nose in "The Hours"!). But even with her plucked eyebrows, mottled skin, added pounds and false teeth, Theron's ultrafeminine beauty shines through. You can see it in her eyes and in her occasional smile. Even the studiedly nonchalant way she holds a cigarette lapses, at times, into a more girlish type of gesture. As they say, what's bred in the bone will out in the flesh.
The problem for me is that we do not see, and thus understand, how Lee morphed from the pretty little girl she once must have been, to the swaggering tough she becomes. Perhaps it is not enough that we are told about her childhood woes. Perhaps we should have been shown more graphically where Lee's troubles began. It takes more than makeup, externally applied, to create a monster. We need to see and understand the makeup within.