A Monumental Performance by Charlize Theron-A Great Film

Rating: 10/10 (2 January 2004)

A Monumental Performance by Charlize Theron-A Great Film
In October 2002 the State of Florida killed serial murderer Aileen Wuornos after she languished on Death Row for a dozen years. Her guilt was never in serious doubt. The fascination she held for many is that she was that true rarity of crime annals-the female who sequentially took the lives of men.
Historically, some men have always been both fascinated by and perhaps intelligently afraid of women who might kill them. In the England of the Tudors the greatest crime was treason, a personal affront to the person of the sovereign. Interestingly, a close runner-up was "petit treason," the murder of a husband by his wife. In English legal history, morbid accounts of women using their special weapon, poison, appear with bone-chilling regularity.
"Monster" is what could be simply called a biopic of one of America's few known female serial killers (especially those who operate alone. Homicidal distaff accomplices of men are a dime a dozen.).
The Charlize Theron of "Monster" isn't the seductive and beautiful woman of "Sweet November" or "The Italian Job." Thanks to incredible work by the make-up people she has stepped into Aileen's body and side-by-side photos of the two can lead some to be confused as to who is who. Theron is a bedraggled, scraggly-haired, unkempt, often drunk vulgarian whose clothes don't fit and whose body almost emanates from the screen a chronically putrid odor.
More important than the physical adaptation, Theron has taken on Wuornos's troubled psyche, her mannerisms, her coarse and vulgar speech as if it were her own. Closely and accurately tracking the last year of Wuornos's life before incarceration, Theron co-opts viewers for a strange and fearful ride through the near-slums of Florida.
Wuornos became a hooker at age thirteen, turning tricks to survive. Apparently she never had a homosexual relationship until she met and teamed up with Selby (not her real name, the imprint of reviewing attorneys being clear). Christina Ricci is the teenage Selby and she portrays Aileen's young friend and lover with a convincing mix of what the real woman must have been like. First she's an explorer in the world of gay relationships, then an acolyte of the commanding but affection bestowing older woman, then a manipulative and exploitative spoiled child who is both repelled by her knowledge of the killings but also unwilling to lose a "sugar mommy." Ricci's intense Selby is not a nice person.
Wuornos began killing with a gun as she unleashed long suppressed hatred of rapacious (literally) men. Her first shooting, paradoxically, was the only one justified by both law and morality. The rest were inexcusable on any legal theory (including insanity. This woman, despite what some have argued, was not psychotic and she was competent to both stand trial and be punished. She demonstrated, as does Theron, a warped but rational view of the state of equal protection law when she cursed the trial judge for sentencing "a white woman to death.")
Selby and Aileen, always called "Lee," are on a perpetual road trip to, in reality, nowhere. Wuornos feels a net closing in on her but she can't restrain her behavior. She fantasizes a happy, loving life with Selby even while her demons warn her it won't happen. Theron's projection of this woman who so wanted love and affection from Selby and could only return it in a controlling albeit deep sense is gripping. Part of her brilliant performance is that she shows the complicated and evanescent moods of the killer. One minute the audience feels sorry for her plight, the next revulsion at her deeds.
The title of the film might well be a simple description of the murdering prostitute. But it also may be seen as being provocatively ambiguous. Aileen was no monster when her father's friend raped her at age eight. She was no monster when her father brutally beat her for telling him of the rape, thereby insuring a continuation of the atrocity. She was no monster when she took up prostitution at age 13, hoping with the demagnetized moral compass of a wounded teenager that she might find a man who would really love and respect her.
But some of the men in this film are true monsters and recognizing that in no way alleviates her guilt. Men who pay for perverted sex and need violence to enjoy physical intimacy: they are as warped as the homicidal hooker who ended their depredations. But, usually, they aren't accountable for their behavior.
Theron arrives at a new acting plateau with "Monster." She's on the cover of Time Out New York's current issue. But today only one theater in New York is screening this powerful, monumental work. It deserves the widest circulation.
Theron co-produced "Monster" and director Patty Jenkins wrote the screenplay, largely based on police reports, news accounts and - most importantly - Wuornos's letters.
I don't think Aileen Wuornos could have been rehabilitated ever. But I do believe we diminished ourselves by executing a victim of evil and perversion. Aileen Wuornos in one manner or another was doomed from childhood. And there are many others like her although few will become serial killers.
10/10