Wow! Excellent!!

Rating: 10/10 (3 February 2004)

While this is not always a comfortable movie to watch, it is extremely satisfying and -- IMO, great.
Theron's performance is fully deserving of all the honors she's already won and any (e.g., the Oscar) for which she's nominated. This is far beyond acting -- Theron IS the character.
I haven't seen any of the documentaries on Aileen W. and do not doubt that there are alternative perspectives on her life that could be held. This particular view is sympathetic to Aileen, showing her as an abused child, seriously crippled in her fight to survive, and starved for and unfamiliar with a caring relationship in any form.
Her gradual slide into serial killing as a way to maintain her new found relationship and love with Selby (Ricci) struck me (a retired therapist) as believable and convincingly plausible and true to life.

Ricci does an excellent, convincing job as Selby, Aileen's teenage lover although the film doesn't develop her character as much as Aileen's.
Certainly this is one of the very best movies of 2003. Theron's performance is probably the best of a decade.