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| How does a person become a monster? How does a woman become a serial killer? Are they born that way? Are they driven to it by abuse? Does something just snap and send them off on their killing spree? Do they drift into it like many people drift into their work? |
(2003) Film Review |
| This page was created on January 13, 2004
This page was last updated on
January 19, 2004
—Review
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| CREDITS |
| Directed by Patty Jenkins
Writen by Patty Jenkins
Producers
Mark Damon ... producer
Andreas Grosch ... executive producer
Stewart Hall ... executive producer
Donald Kushner ... producer
Sammy Lee ... executive producer
Brent Morris ... co-producer
Clark Peterson ... producer
Meagan Riley-Grant ... executive producer
Andreas Schmid ... executive producer
Charlize Theron ... producer
Brad Wyman ... producer
Cast - in credits order
Charlize Theron ... Aileen
Christina Ricci ... Selby
Bruce Dern ... Thomas
Lee Tergesen ... Vincent Corey
Annie Corley ... Donna
Pruitt Taylor Vince ... Gene/Stuttering "John"
Marco St. John ... Evan/Undercover "John"
Marc Macaulay ... Will/Daddy "John"
Scott Wilson ... Horton/Last "John"
Rus Blackwell ... Cop
Tim Ware ... Chuck
Robb Chamberlain ... Lead Prosecutor
Stephan Jones ... Lawyer
Brett Rice ... Charles
Kaitlin Riley ... Teenage Aileen
Catherine Mangan ... Justy
Original Music by BT
Cinematography by Steven Bernstein
Editored by Arthur Coburn and Jane Kurson
MPAA: Rated R for strong violence and sexual content, and for pervasive language.
Runtime: USA:111 min
For rating reasons, go to FILMRATINGS.COM, and MPAA.ORG.
Parents, please refer to PARENTALGUIDE.ORG
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| SYNOPSIS |
 In a revelatory performance, Charlize Theron stars in the shocking and moving true-life story of Aileen Wuornos, a prostitute executed last year in Florida after being convicted of murdering six men. While Wuornos confessed to the six murders, including
a policeman, she claimed to have killed only in self-defense, resisting violent assaults while working as a prostitute. Bravely burrowing beneath the tabloid headlines about America’s first female serial killer—and the media’s sordid designation of Wuornos as an unrepentant monster—in the midst of the horrors and pathologies, first-time writer-director Patty Jenkins unearths an unlikely love story between two misfits.
Nearing suicidal despair, Wuornos wanders into a Florida bar, where she meets Selby Wall (Christina Ricci), a young woman sent by her parents to live with an aunt in order to “cure her homosexuality.” Wuornos—victim of a tragic, abusive upbringing—quickly falls in love, and clings to Selby like a life preserver. Unable to find a legitimate job but desperate to sustain her relationship with
Selby, Wuornos continues working as a prostitute. When one of her johns turns violent, Wuornos shoots the man in self-defense; the first in her tragic string of killings.
Shot in many of the actual locations where Wuornos committed her crimes between 1989-90, in its grittiness, verisimilitude, and hard-won empathy for its antihero, Monster is reminiscent of the great, iconoclastic American films of the ‘60s and ‘70s. Co-starring Bruce Dern, Monster succeeds as searing social commentary, road movie, and, most profoundly, as love story. Theron’s ferocious, fully-committed
work—astounding physical transformation matched by unerring psychological acuity—is sure to surprise audiences familiar with her work, and in writer-director Jenkins, Monster heralds a major new filmmaking talent. |
 Review by
DARREL MANSON BLOG
Pastor, Artesia Christian Church, Artesia, CA
http://netministries.org/see/churches/ch01198
Darrel has an incredible love and interest in the cinematic arts. His reviews usually include independent and significantly important film. |
 How does a person become a monster? How does a woman become a serial killer? Are they born that way? Are they driven to it by abuse? Does something just snap and send them off on their killing spree? Do they drift into it like many people
drift into their work?
 There is no answer that would apply to all. Monster is a look at Aileen Wuornos, who was executed in 2002 for a series of killings in Florida. She has been the focus of two documentaries.
Her life had been hard -- raped by a family friend when she was 8, beaten by her father, pregnant at 13. She spent much of her life as a roadside prostitute. Such a life can be fertile ground for the kind of anger that leads to violence, but in itself is not enough to explain Wuornos' crimes. This film by Patty Jenkins gives us a glimpse at how it came to be that this woman crossed the line into what many consider to be monstrous. Although Jenkins has researched the story and had access
to some of Wuornos' letters, it is still Jenkins' reconstruction and as such may vary from the actual events as are more evident in the documentaries.
The film is getting a good deal of attention because of the performance of Cherlize Theron as Wuornos. She has set aside the starlet looks for this roll, gaining thirty pounds, and being made up to look plain at best. But her performance is not merely the physical transformation. She carries the character through a wide range of emotions and changes. Christina Ricci as Selby Wall provides a wonderful supporting performance.
 The film begins by letting us hear her speak of her dreams, being Marilyn Monroe, finding someone who would want her. Soon she settled for getting attention rather than affection. By the time we discover her as an adult, she is ready to commit suicide, but first has to spend her last $5. (She figures a john had paid her the $5 and if she doesn't
spend it it would be like doing it for free.) There she meets Selby Wall, a young lesbian who has been shipped down to Florida by her family to try to cure her of her homosexuality. Wuornos really doesn't want to have anything to do with her, since Wuornos isn't lesbian, but she spends time with her and finds the someone who would want her.
 As they run away together to start new lives, Wuornos is ready to quit hooking, but they need money. One pick up takes her out to a remote spot and rapes her She shoots him, and thus begins her descent. That killing should be seen as self-defense, but it emboldens her to become increasingly violent, each murder taking her farther down.
I would expect some will object to the film because it does have a certain sympathy for Wuornos (although even with that sympathetic treatment, she is not very sympathetic). In some ways she has been a victim for a long period. She has been starved for love, and when she finally finds it, she does what she does to try to keep that love.
 But in spite of the sympathy for her, we also see that she steps over a line that leads to monstrous actions and threatens her humanity. We see not so much a snap that sends her off, but a step by step degeneration. Each murder makes the next easier until she does it without even being able to justify it to herself.
The title of the film comes from her recollection of going to a carnival when she is young and going on a Ferris wheel called "The Monster". The ride made her sick. Later in the film, she and Selby go a carnival and we watch as she gets on the Ferris wheel, with great trepidation. She is able to do this which has been such an aversion to her before, just as she has become able to kill without remorse.
One doesn't become evil overnight. Each time we sin makes the next sin a bit easier -- perhaps even making the next a bit more necessary. Becoming a monster is a slow process. We can each become that monster if we are not aware of our actions and their continuing effects on us. |
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