Spoiler, Rated 10; totally devastating, a MUST SEE

Rating: Null/10 (23 July 2004)

"Monster" is based on a true story of (allegedly) the "First Female Serial Killer". My first thought while the credits were still running was "there but for the grace of God go I". Everything about the movie, including the stated intentions of those who made the movie, is not to take a position to judge or vindicate the crimes Lee Wuornos committed. Rather the purpose of the movie is to portray the truth, as much as possible, about a world most people never experience and don't want to know about, yet are intensely fascinated with.
The movie left me with a desire to know more facts about Ms. Wuornos' life. For those who are as curious as I, there is an excellent Law Report by Phyllis Chesler, Ph.D., titled "Sexual Violence Against Women and a Woman's Right to Self-Defense: The Case of Aileen Carol Wuornos", dated October 9, 1993 (Search for Aileen Wuornos). Some of the facts garnered from Dr. Chesler's report are these: Lee was 33 when she committed her first murder on November 30, 1989; composite sketches appeared on the News in December of 1990; she was arrested January 9, 1991 and confessed to killing five "johns" over the course of the intervening 13 months; her trial lasted 13 days, from January 13, to January 30, 1992; the jury deliberated 91 minutes before finding her guilty, with an additional hour and 48 minutes to recommend the death penalty. She then spent nearly 11 more years on death row before being executed by the State of Florida on October 9, 2002 at the age of 46. Her lover's name was Tyria Moore, who was 18 when she met Lee. And, here is a bizarre coincidence: her second public defender attorney's name was Tish Jenkins; the movie "Monster" was written and directed by Patty Jenkins.
It is my personal belief that movies are meant, as all art is meant, to be experienced for the value of what the viewer can learn; lessons in life, sugarcoated by a good dramatic story to hold the interest of the audience. FOR THIS REASON ALONE, I GIVE "MONSTER" A 10.
Whatever your personal opinion of the subject matter may be, you will get a chance to exercise your gray matter, to perhaps come away from the movie sadder and wiser.
The movie takes its title from a ferris-wheel, called the "Monster" that Lee rode as a young child. The writer/director uses letters written by Lee to her lifelong hometown friend to recreate the thoughts and experiences of this tragic woman's life story. As a former hooker myself, I can personally validate Lee's thoughts, as she watches her young lover's gaiety at Fun World: People look down their noses at hookers, but they have no idea the guts it takes to be one; everyone thinks hookers take the "easy way out". Lee recalls her experience on the Monster Ferris Wheel; how she thought it looked so cool, but the experience of it made her vomit; she recalls this sardonic juxtaposition as she showers off the blood of one of her victims. Later, as she rides the ferris-wheel at Fun World with her young, naive lover, you can see her gorge rise and you realize Lee is afraid of heights, but is riding the ferris-wheel because her young love is thrilled by it. When her girlfriend notices the discomfort in Lee's expression and asks Lee if she is OK, Lee swallows her fear and reassures the girl she is fine. For me, that is the "core moment" of this tragic story.
How often do we face our fears for the sake of the innocents we love? Lee doesn't enjoy hooking, in fact she fears it, and endures that fear for her life's and loves' sake. We learn in the movie that Lee was sexually raped/molested by her dad's best friend from the age of 8, and that her dad physically beat Lee, blaming her and not his "friend". Lee endured pregnancy as a result of rape at age 13, giving the baby up for adoption. After that her father killed himself (we never find out anything about Lee's mother in the film), and her brothers and sisters were taken in by neighbors with the condition that Lee doesn't hang around them, leaving a homeless and "ruined" Lee to support herself by prostitution. Lee gives her siblings money for "clothes and stuff"; money she earned by selling her body; when someone at a party publicly declares Lee "slept" with some guy, she is ejected forcibly by her embarrassed siblings into the snow. After this final abandonment, Lee leaves town, ending up in Florida, where the film opens; she has been a hooker for 20 more weary years of plying her trade as a "street whore", working mostly truck stops and living as a homeless and hopeless alcoholic, beaten and battered by the men in her life, and only an unspent 5 dollar bill keeps her from putting a bullet in her head. As her "only" friend, Thomas, tells her "I know you didn't dial up your life on a telephone, but because you had to live; what you are feeling now is the guilt that me and other vets felt after the war; it is circumstance, and no one who hasn't been there will ever understand that".
Prostitution is "the second oldest profession"; soldiering is the oldest. As Lee says to "her girl" , "People kill each other every day, for religion or politics. It's just the way the world is".
Like I said, this movie will make you think.