a love story gone bad

Rating: 9/10 (11 April 2009)

I think the essence of this film is that it is a tortured love story. I have become fascinated with this subject and I have watched this movie and the documentary "Aileen: life and death of a serial killer" several times. Even though Patty Jenkins did an admirable job of showing the real desperation and hunger for love that Aileen had, the movie still does manage to slightly glamorize the situation. I guess you have to give film makers some liberties, after all it is not a documentary, it is an piece of art that is trying to move people, which requires moving certain facts around and changing characters (for instance whereas Theron was spot on as Aileen, Ricci was much much cuter that the real life butchy looking Tyria Moore). I think the reason I watched this movie so many times is because of the famous Oscar winning performance by Theron. She really does seem to channel an entirely different person, it's astounding to watch, especially since this woman grew up in South Africa and only learned English when she was 17. I think her accent is a little off, if you watch the documentary Aileen has more of a mid-west accent rather than a southern one, but everything else is amazing to watch.
The love story that unfolds is beautiful, if perhaps unrealistic (Tyria Moore said Aileen was more like a sister than a lover). It seems to natural because Aileen/Theron is so masculine and physically imposing compared to the tiny Ricci that it doesn't even seem like a lesbian romance. I think Jenkins and Robinson were both interested, as I was, in finding the truth. Were the murders in self defense or not? Perhaps nobody will ever know. The documentary has a section where Aileen contradicts her testimony and says it was all about robbery, but it's important to realize that she only saying this because she was going in insane on death row and wanted to end her life as quickly as possible and stop the appeals. Since Jenkins read her letters I have to assume that she injected as much truth as she could. I think her version seems the most likely, that it was a mixture of self defense and opportunism. It is like the Somali pirates of today, once you reach bottom, suddenly you will consider any action to get out of your predicament. It seems Jenkins was pushing the love motivation, which, along with fear, is an incredibly strong motivational factor. As Aileen points out in the movie, people murder for love and fear every day. Of course it doesn't make it right, but Jenkins tries to at least show that the world is a complicated place and it's only simple minded people who come up with simple answers to horrible situations. (I read the same thing on message boards about the Somali pirates today, "blow them up, nuke 'em" etc.)
Anyone truly fascinated with this person and subject should get the 2 DVD special edition, the commentary is interesting, Jenkins gives little tidbits about Aileen based on the letters she wrote while on death row that reveal even more abuse and bad luck then I previously knew about, which was a lot. I think the ultimate lesson from all of this is that if you beat a dog long enough, eventually it's going to bite.