Monster

Rating:
Summary: The best acting performance...bar none
Review: After seeing this movie I can now say that I know what a true actress is. Charlize not only changes her looks but she truly becomes the character she is portraying. I was completely blown away by her complete transformation. Because of her performance I actually found myself feeling pity for the "Monster". Here was a woman that was actually doomed from birth. You get the feeling that she was never given the chances that so many people take for granted. All through the movie I felt so bad for the fact that her spirit had been beaten down so low that all she ever wanted was for someone, anyone in her small pathetic world to love her. This movie actually made me take a different look at the people that we all look away from on the street and to see them in a different light. After seeing this movie I am left with one thought, "There - but by the grace of God - Go I". I encourage everyone to see this movie at least once, if not for the heartrenching story of a sad life led sadly astray, then for the best acting that I have ever seen from any actor, male or female. Pay close attention to the scene before the first murder where she is pumping herself up while trying to make the money that she feels she needs to keep her girlfriend happy, the expression on her face prior to sticking out her thumb for another "trick" is just one of the moving moments that Ms. Theron nails.

Rating:
Summary: Theron's tour de force
Review: Whenever I suggest an acting performance worthy of an Oscar, it's understood that my recommendation is debatable. Not so Charlize Theron's tour de force in MONSTER, which transcends argumentative discussion. It's the performance of this decade, and perhaps any decade you'd care to mention. If it doesn't win her the Academy Award for best actress in a leading role, then there's no justice and the Oscars will forever lose all credibility with me. No other performance by a female actor in 2003 comes even close. Not Kidman, not Johansson, not Keaton, or anyone else you'd be tempted to mention. And I'll even sell down the river my personal favorite, Cate Blanchett.

In January 1991, aging prostitute Aileen Wuornos was arrested in Florida. She was suspected of killing seven men since 1989, leaving their bullet-riddled bodies near highways, and stealing their cars and cash. In January 1992, Wuornos was tried, convicted, and sentenced to death, mostly on the evidence of her own confessions and the testimony of her lesbian lover during the killing spree, Tyria Moore. In October 2002, the state took her life. MONSTER is Aileen's story.

Even a cursory reading of the Wuornos tragedy on the Web will indicate the challenge of Charlize's incredibly taxing role. It's not just the make-up (shaved eyebrows, false teeth), body alteration (thirty pounds added weight), and costumes that the actress put on for the role. It's the walk, talk, nervous mannerisms and body language. Even aura, if you believe in such. Theron is unrecognizable as herself. The transformation is apocalyptically stunning.

The film does, of course, take liberties. Tyria Moore, 24-years old when she met Wuornos in 1986, becomes "Selby" (Christina Ricci), who's about 18 in the script. The screenplay inferred to me a time span of perhaps several months for the Aileen-Selby relationship, and that the first killing occurred about when the two first met. In fact, Aileen and Tyria spent four years together, and the first murder was committed only towards the end. In any case, Ricci deserves consideration for an Oscar in a supporting role as the troubled, naive, and clueless Selby totally out of her depth.

At one point, Theron's Aileen states that she was raped by her father's friends, and that he subsequently beat her for it. In fact, Aileen's real-life mother divorced Leo Dale Pittman a couple months before her daughter's birth and Aileen never met her natural father. Aileen and a brother were subsequently raised by their maternal grandparents, Lauri and Britta Wuornos. The grandfather drank heavily and was physically abusive. Aileen engaged in pre-marital sex at an early age, and was pregnant at 14. After giving her child up for adoption, she ran away from home to take up hitchhiking and prostitution. While MONSTER doesn't excuse Aileen for her the murders she later committed, it reveals Wuornos for the emotionally and psychologically tortured casualty of life that she was and who, in the end, "volunteered" for the death penalty. In this case, execution may have been a mercy.

MONSTER gives evil a human face, a fact that will undoubtedly cause discomfiture in some critics who believe in a morally black and white world.

MONSTER isn't an easy presentation to watch. As the film unwound and the power of Theron's performance washed over me in waves, I found myself sliding lower and lower into my seat. The rape scene that sets Aileen on her murderous path is vicious. And it doesn't get any easier with the individual killings, especially the last when any vestige of sympathy the audience might have for Wuornos is forfeit. Based solely on the intensity of the subject matter, MONSTER goes up against HOUSE OF SAND AND FOG as arguably the Best Picture of the year.

Rating:
Summary: Psychological brutality; lesbianism; serial murder!
Review: After being forced to acknowledge the magnificence of the mythical Christian epic THE RETURN OF THE KING, Hollywood's PM clique has rallied around this perverse glorification (a la Hannibal Lector)of the glamour and emotional power (Hate as deconstructed Love)of Evil. MONSTER is a Lilith-agenda work of demonic energy. It's fearsome exploitation of fear,ignorance, child-molestation and totally amoral ALIEN sexuality fascinates with sheer relentless DESPAIR. This film reminds me of "history" books describing the ambience of Nazi Germany before Hitler was exalted into power. ACID RANCOR drives frame after frame. It made me feel soddened to recognize the depths the popular cinema/ art establishment...in its lavish praise...has sunk to, as it continues to drag viewers into its cess pool aesthetic. MONSTER is psychological masochism. (No, I couldn't/wouldn't watch the whole thing. Neither should you.)

Rating:
Summary: Amazing!
Review: I don't really want to fill this out. Don't waste your time reading right now, just get thee to a theater to see this movie! Theron is amazing in this role. Who knew? Now, WE do! I totally forgot there was an actor on that screen, and believed this was Aileen Wuornos. The only real disappointment was in Ms. Ricci's performance. Either the character was not developed enough or she just wasn't into it. She seemed to play one note, and that was whiney baby dyke. Theron, however, did not let those less capable prevent her from blowing other Oscar competition out of the water.

Thank you Patty Jenkins for doing this film, and thank you Charlize for your passion and talent and having the guts to let us see what you can do. Not an easy thing, but lady, you've got it!

Rating:
Summary: Charlize Theron Gives One of the Great Performances of 2003.
Review: "Monster" recounts the story of Aileen Wuornos, a truck stop prostitute who received 6 death sentences for murdering 6 men in Florida in 1989-1990. As the film opens, we find Wuornos (Charlize Theron) despondent at her hand-to mouth existence. Determined not to leave this world with money in her pocket, she goes into a bar to spend her last dollars. There she meets Selby (Christina Ricci), a naive and aimless young woman looking for lesbian companionship. Wuornos quits prostitution and becomes involved with Selby, promising to take care of this woman who, to her, represents the only love she has experienced. With little understanding of how to acquire a legal occupation, Wuornos quickly runs out of money and turns again to prostitution for income. Selby's demands, Wuornos' warped sense of responsibility, paranoia, and a wavering grasp on reality lead to more violent methods of acquiring cash.

Charlize Theron's performance in "Monster" is one cinema's most incredible transformations, and it is reason to see the film. The amazing thing is that her transformation from one of Hollywood's great beauties to grizzled, masculine, murderess is entirely credible. Theron is helped a lot by make-up, contact lenses and weight gain, but it is through Theron's body language that Aileen Wuornos inhabits the screen. Christina Ricci is also effective as Wuornos' incredibly selfish lover, Selby. My greatest criticism of director Patty Jenkins is the film's too-prominent pop music soundtrack. I can't imagine why we hear upbeat pop songs during some scenes. Their tone is entirely inappropriate. The soundtrack injects some undesirable amateurishness into the film. But I recommend "Monster" for Charlize Theron's performance.

Writer/director Patty Jenkins has been accused of trying to inspire sympathy for Aileen Wuornos with this film. I suppose she is. But I didn't find Wuornos to be sympathetic, and Selby (whose name was changed for the movie) is even less so. Some events have been condensed for the film, but the story that "Monster" tells is largely accurate. The film approaches the story from Wuornos' point of view. Her character narrates and expounds her point of view in dialogue throughout the film. Since the film is about her, I see no problem with this. But I don't think that even her own words make Wuornos sympathetic, although she makes some good points in her narration. And I'm not sure that sympathy is relevant, anyhow. A person is not let off the hook just because she is sympathetic any more than someone should be condemned because she is not. In any case, it is difficult to know the precise circumstances of the murders because Aileen Wuornos changed her story countless times. She frequently claimed that all of her victims tried to rape her but eventually said only the first victim did. The fact that her first victim had previously been convicted of violent crimes of a sexual nature lends that version of Wuornos' story some credibility. As for her stories of an abusive childhood, Wuornos was raised by her maternal grandparents, whom she believed were her parents until she was 12 years old. Her grandmother was an alcoholic, and their home may have been abnormally strict and liberal in the use of corporal punishment. But any claims beyond that are unsubstantiated. Following the death of her grandmother, Wuornos was given the opportunity to live with her biological mother, which she refused. She went to Florida and hit the streets instead. Wuornos' luck was not all bad. She was briefly married to a man who had a comfortable income. He had the marriage annulled on account of her violent behavior. Wuornos' story is worth telling. My point is that it may not be precisely as she says. Aileen Wuornos was executed as "Monster" was being filmed, having spent 12 years on Florida's death row.

Rating:
Summary: Gritty, gut wrenching film
Review: Monster's content was difficult to digest. However, if you focus on the performace of Charlize, you will be amazed. Most of the time, you will not recognize her. Only once or twice for a second, I detected a hint of Charlize Theron. Unbelievable gritty performance by a top notch actor who took on this incredibly brave role.

Rating:
Summary: Monster
Review: Myself, or no one, expected so much out of this movie. The pain and the horror that woman went through which made her retaliate toward men. Charlize Theron played this woman to a "T", not hesitating showing her full emotion, hatred, and love. She was not only made up to look like Aileen, her whole characterization became Aileen. For a first-time writer/director for a movie, Patty Jenkins deserves high credit for this accomplishment. If nothing else, this movie shows how much someone can be so wrong in their doings, but yet in her mind be so right.

Rating:
Summary: Most Certainly You'll See Oscar Nods...
Review: ...for the director and to Theron for her amazing transformation, but to me there's something not right about how Hollywood folks will be rewarded for such a heartbreaking true story. While I cannot condone what Wournos did, and while many folks will say she got what she deserved, to me it was quite obvious that she needed help that society refused to give or just could not give. (Particularly so in Jeb Bush's Florida.) The movie allows us to look at how a Aileen Wournos could be created and makes us take a look of our own humanity--or lack of humanity.

Rating:
Summary: Aileen Wuornos: Victimizer, Victim, or both?
Review: I have always held firm in believing that the death penalty is a justified, and indeed, necessary, part of our criminal justice system. Similarly, I have always thought of serial killers as "monsters" who prey upon the innocent in the dark of night. Going into Monster, the new film by Patty Jenkins, I expected to get just such a portrait of Aileen Wuornos. After all, Wuornos was dubbed by the media as America's first female serial killer and executed in 2002. What the film reveals about her, though, is much more unsettling than a soulless beast. Life has chewed Aileen up, spit her out, and wiped its feet on her remains. Idealism she desperately clung to in her younger days--clung to in spite of increasingly insurmountable roadblocks to normality--has been forcibly extinguished.

Charlize Theron gives the best female performance of the year in capturing Aileen physically and emotionally, in both cases a wreck. The film opens with a suicidal Aileen sitting in the rain getting ready to snuff out her existence. Having five dollars left from her last john--her only job since her early teens has been prostitution--she enters, unknowingly, a gay bar to have a final drink. She struts into the place with a gruff and manly persona, an obvious mask to hide the cowering child inside. A younger and more obviously vulnerable Selby (Christina Ricci) immediately is attracted to her. Aileen quickly opens herself to Selby and develops perhaps the first real human connection of her life. Aileen may or may not be gay, but following her experiences, a woman is the only person with whom she can possibly relate.

Both Aileen and Selby are on the run, Aileen from a job that is killing her every day and Selby from a father who can't accept her as she is. Their relationship is far from perfect, but each represents to the other a hand to hold when the silver lining we are told lies in every cloud turns out to be, in fact, lies. They have a taste of fairy tale happiness, going roller-skating and then making out behind the rink. We wish they could be transplanted into a more hopeful situation. But life comes crashing in, and purity disappears.

Aileen is brutally raped by a john, and probably saves her life by grabbing a gun from his car and killing him first. In stealing the rest of his money, Aileen envisions using that seed to grow a life for herself and her new girlfriend. She springs Selby from the family she's been staying with, cronies of her father, and they run off to a motel together. Aileen, searching for any straight job available, tries to wedge herself into a society she's never been part of and that coldly rejects any advances she attempts. Selby, seeing the idealistic mirage starting to fade, explodes at Aileen one night thereby pushing her onto exactly the wrong path.

Returning to hooking, Aileen goes out day after day, then returns with a new car and wads of cash. Selby initially may not see what is happening, but soon becomes an accomplice in enabling Aileen to continue this bloody and tragic method to get a leg-up on life. But even as the murders continue and sloppiness begins to put the couple at risk, one never loses sight of Aileen's humanity and the underlying motive of her crimes. She wants enough money to be able to stop selling her body, live an actual life with Selby, and maybe even be accepted by the rest of the planet. The fact that she has been used her entire life has blinded her to all rationality and sense; she's been trained to believe that the only way to get ahead is to use other people.

Aileen cannot be forgiven for committing her murders, which should go without saying. But, at the same time, how much culpability can be placed on the shoulders of a person who never received a moral compass and whose only education was victimization? If a dog is beaten by its owner in puppy hood and shown no love, can one possibly be surprised when that dog becomes a vicious adult? If there is nobody willing to guide the victimized back onto the right path, the outrage we rightfully feel when blood is spilled may be tragically misdirected.

Final Film Grade: A

Rating:
Summary: Standing outside of the crowd.
Review: MONSTER is based on the life of serial killer Aileen Wuornos (played brilliantly by Charlize Theron), who was executed Oct. 9, 2002, after murdering at least six Florida men while working as a prostitute. In her 1992 trial, Wuornos pleaded innocent, saying she acted in self-defense to prevent being raped, a statement she later recanted. The film centers on Wuornos' life before the murders and her romantic relationship with Selby (Christina Ricci), a woman she dated while still turning tricks and killing men. MONSTER is also a story that is filled with emotion and pain as the cameras follow these two women as they attempt to create a life for themselves. As stated at the beginning of the film, Aileen has always wanted to be discovered and become a star. But instead, she is constantly standing outside of the group of her peers. She is constantly raped by a family friend and begins prostitution at age 13. She leaves home after her father commits suicides and her family disowns her. What follows is a life of pulling tricks at the side of the highway trying to hide from the cops while protecting herself from the constant threats of violence and worse, death.

There is no doubt that this film evokes an on-going controversy of the life of Aileen Wuornos. While some believed it was right to prosecute and execute her for her crimes, others wonder at what degree the impact of her environment affected her actions. To be honest this film tends to lean on the side of the latter. The harsh life of Eileen as a prostitute was thoroughly investigated, such as being beat up and sodomized with a lead pipe while being tied up after a trick went sour. Even when Aileen tries to join mainstream society by getting a real job she fails due to being a felon and having a lack of education or legitimate working history. She has no option but to return to the streets. But no matter what your judgment is, this issue was best vocalized by one her tricks when he said that he "both hated and loved hookers."

MONSTER is a film filled with tremendous acting and thought-provoking material. It is also a film that has the potential to shake you up inside and leave you unsettled for some time afterwards. Highly recommended.