A lazy rendition of a terrifying tale!

Rating: Null/10 (17 June 2004)

Rather unfortunately for this movie, Nick Broomfield had already brought us the real Aileen Wuornos in his excellent 1992 documentary 'Aileen Wuornos: The Selling of a Serial Killer'. Compounding his excellence and Patty Jenkins' mediocrity, he also released his second documentary on her life (or, should I say, death), 'Aileen: Life and Death of a Serial Killer', in 2003  the year 'Monster' finally reached our screens. With this competition, 'Monster' never really stood much of a chance. Even on this side of the Atlantic, where Aileen is not the celebrity death row inmate she is/was in America and the story should be fresher, it is told by Jenkins in such a hackneyed, clichéd way as to distract the viewer from the true tragedies of her life. It focuses on all the wrong things at all the wrong times, drawing attention with witless abandon away from the main downfall of Aileen's life  her own mind. She is trapped and terrified to such a degree within her own head that it is beyond the capabilities of such a mediocre film maker to comprehend her, let alone display any coherence on screen.
Jenkins' opening sequence is, without mincing words, awful. Flashback and voice-over makes for lazy film-making at it's worst, and dispels any illusions or hope as to who is at the helm. To quote a much better screenwriter, Charlie Kaufman, and his interpretation of virtuoso Robert McKee's view on this 'if you use voice-over in your work. that's flaccid, sloppy writing. Any idiot can write a voice-over narration to explain the thoughts of a character'. Not that Patty Jenkins is all bad  she does give an almost valid woman's perspective on things, but goes overboard with this feeling and almost drowns in salivation at the thought of making Aileen Wuornos a feminist icon through her movie. She does not, and Aileen is not. Where Broomfield succeeded, and where Jenkins failed, is in the depiction of this woman as a pitiable victim. There is no need to go into logistics  what she did was terrible, and punishable  there is no denying that  but the awful incompetence of the United States Judicial System, along with it's Social Welfare net, allowed Aileen to become the woman she was. I won't dwell long on her story, as it's been told a hundred times (exploited by the people she trusted, for monetary gain), but merely wish to point out that Broomfield tells the story as it is, whereas Jenkins tells the story as she thinks it might be. She reduces Aileen's horrific childhood to a few short shots and a voice-over, and makes the rest of the tale into a bastardised 'Bonnie & Clyde' for the alternative lifestyle. Aileen, as we glean from Broomfield's annals, was in love with Selby, her lesbian partner, and Selby seemed to have, at the very least, high regard for Aileen. However, Jenkins' movie celebrates the lesbianism to a degree that this almost becomes a love story  leading the viewer to believe that it all would have turned out OK were it not for those gosh-darned johns laying dead under an overpass.
The truth is, Aileen was manipulated by everyone who knew her, and Selby is not exempt. The implausibility of Christina Ricci, though vaguely attempting 'dyke'-stereotype tom-boyishness, falling in love with the heavy, uncouth and vaguely disgusting hi-way hooker that Charlize Theron (with greedy aplomb) embodies is the most visually arresting of the movies characterisation mistakes. Charlize gives a good performance, and is strikingly similar to Aileen throughout, but she is let down on all sides by B-movie flashes of acting (the usually great Ricci falling flat on her face at every step). She even attempts to bring across to the audience the real tragedy of the events of this woman's life  that all the deaths could have been prevented had Social Welfare stepped in at an early age. She also manages to instill in Aileen shades of the very thing that makes the woman so arresting in documentaries  her obvious mental handicaps. As Nick Broomfield says  'We have to ask ourselves why the American Government sees fit to execute a mentally deficient woman'. But this is a question Jenkins either dares not ask, for fear of box office repercussions, or it is something she does not have the maturity or capacity as a filmmaker to push.
Theron is the only strong point in a mediocre movie with a badly written story; but even her acting skills cannot pull this film from the video-hell to which it will rightly be cast. The growth of character and narrative is stunted throughout by Jenkins' continuous attempts at independent film-making techniques  the 'road more traveled' that she seems to think she is the first to set out upon  and Theron isn't given a chance to shine in any real sense. Kudos to the make-up department, but we always knew Theron was much more than a pretty face, and she almost proves it here. Aileen Wuornos' life deserves much more than this, and though viewable for curiosity, Broomfield by far encapsulates the tale to a much greater effect  'Monster' cannot hope to come close to giving us a pure view. Aileen's story is a sad one, and a terrifying one for our own society and capitalist culture (not withstanding the alternative blinkered views of the American system, plus it's gung-ho, shoot-'em-all-up attitude to executions), and one that gives a stern caution. If we do not stand up for the weak in our society, then their fate becomes ours  a point severely lost in this pitiful attempt at serious film-making. 2/5