Not a popcorn film, leave it in the lobby

Rating: 8/10 (12 January 2004)

Monster is a deeply affecting film based on the unbelievably sad life of Aileen Wuornos, whose tragic story is done justice here by writer/director Patty Jenkins and Charlize Theron, who portrays Wuornos (known as "Lee" in the film) with dazzlingly fearless abandon. I have always been a fan of Theron's, and I'm very pleased to see her getting such fantastic praise for this performance. Surely she will at least receive an Oscar nomination, and Christina Ricci is equally deserving; she nails her character Selby (based on the real-life Tyria Moore) brilliantly as well.
The thing that makes this movie more than just another "based on a true story" melodrama is the rawness and truth of its emotional core - here we have a woman, raped and abused from childhood on who sees no other options for herself but to become a hooker, brutally marginalized by society, whose life is just one long series of bewildered confusion (although she believes she sees things very clearly in her deluded state), who meets someone (Tyria/Selby) that needs HER, someone she believes she can invest all her love in (and she does have a lot of love to give). Unfortunately her mind is far too warped by this point, and it doesn't help that Selby (in the film) is a complete emotional cripple, a virtual black hole of need, and this is what eventually undoes the situation.
-=- POSSIBLE SPOILERS -=- Ironically, Selby ultimately betrays Lee in what she believes to be an act of survival, which is what, if nothing else, she has learned from Lee, and even more ironic is the fact that Lee, the ultimate survivor (living through abuse, rape, brutality of every kind, years of prostitution and more) is not able to survive love.