Serial Killer or Victim of Circumstances? Riveting Portrayal by Charlize Theron

Rating: 10/10 (2 June 2004)

I wanted to watch this movie twice but could not get through it the second time. It's morbid and it's very depersonalizing. It's depressing and it's scary. It brings up so many questions. Was Aileen a "victim" that defended herself, or was she a cold-blooded killer? I still don't know which is the truth. Charlize Theron gave the performance of a life-time in portraying Aileen Wournos, the first "so-called" serial killer of her time. I watched "Monster" with the eyes of a detective, searching for the beautiful movie star Charlize Theron in the character of Aileen and failed to find her. She was that convincing. The weight gain was significant but more detailed was the way her mouth so vividly moved as Aileen's did and they eyes that seemed to me, to be fearful of everything.I will admit that I cried. I saw Aileen's trial and interviews on death row about 3 months ago on Court TV and when I watched "Monster" recently, I saw Aileen, not Charlize Theron. The movie was gritty, dark and it opened more questions for me than closed them. Was Aileen a victim of circumstances? This is a woman who never knew what love was, was never loved, was on her own from age 13 until her execution in Florida in 2002. Yes, I have sympathy for Aileen. I have sympathy too for those she killed with the exception of two that were in the movie which does say at the end that "some of the people and incidences were "created" for the movie and not meant to imply an actual person." I saw, in this movie, a woman who was lost in the system, unwanted, unloved, a rape victim, a struggler who was trying to survive despite society rejecting her and turning away from her; a woman who was violently raped, and yes, prostitutes get raped, who killed the man who was going to kill her after torturing her. It was traumatizing to watch. In the movie, I saw a woman struggling to be accepted by anyone anywhere and I saw everyone fail her and toss her aside. When she went to get work and used honesty to help herself and was rejected, the attorney who made fun of her in his office for applying for a job, these were incidents of her being "failed" by cruelty. I felt sorrow for Aileen. I wished someone would help her, show her some humanity, show her basic kindness, but it didn't happen. She seemed to be aware of her terrible life, of not fitting in, of not being what society deems normal, of living on the fringes. In the beginning of the movie, she is contemplating suicide when she goes to spend her last five dollars and meets Selbie. Aileen had a keen awareness of how she appeared to others and...she had a wisp of optimism for a better life. Selbie gets no sympathy from me. Christina Ricci did an excellent job of portraying the lesbian lover as a "user" and then turned on her to save her own neck. Aiding and abetting.
No actor has ever turned in a more grueling, life-changing portrayal of a real person and a true story as realistically as Charlize Theron. "Monster" will bring out either the worse in the viewer or a lot of compassion, depending on how they "see" Aileen. )***SPOILER***) Was she a victim as she proclaimed in the court room when sentenced to death, yelling at the judge "You're sending a raped woman to death!"? or was Aileen lacking in conscience and of morals, a true lost cause? If she was a lost cause, was it after she was raped or before? It's a thin line to walk when viewing a life so far removed from anything familiar in your own.
Charlize Theron earned her Oscar. She had to walk in Aileen's shoes and be Aileen- and if it horrifies us to just watch it, imagine the emotions Charlize when through to put it "out there" for us to see. In the end, a horrific movie about a woman who we may never know the real truth about except for knowing she lived. And she died by execution. In this disturbing, vivid portrayal of a woman called the "the first female serial killer of our time", Theron defined "acting" and I haven't seen anyone come close to her in sinking their entire being into a role as difficult as this one had to be.