Monster

Patty Jenkins, USA/Germany, 2003, 109 minutes

Aileen Wuornos has the dubious honour of being America's first female serial killer. Inevitably this has spawned a lot of media interest over the years, particularly as her execution loomed in 2002. A relatively sympathetic account of Wuornos, Monster covers the months from her attempted suicide after many years of abuse and prostitution, through her unexpected relationship with young lesbian Selby and, inevitably, the run of killings for which she has become infamous.

It’s rare that I agree 100% with the choice of an Oscar winner but this year I cannot fault the Academy for choosing Charlize Theron as Best Actress: her performance is simply astonishing. There is also the total physical transformation which is completely and utterly convincing. Although the prosthetic teeth and accomplished make up job helped Theron, it is her swagger and substantial weight gain that turns her accomplished acting role into a frighteningly real person. Even if she is only mimicking elements of the substantial amount of footage and information on Wuornos, it is still easily an Oscar-worthy performance.

By comparison Christina Ricci is short changed as Wuornos’ lover Selby, highlighting the main problem with basing films on reality: you have to know about the people you’re writing. Selby is less well known and, thanks to previous Broomfield documentaries on Wuornos, comes out of Monster rather badly. Ricci does her best with the material and almost makes up for the rest of the film through her first 10 minutes on screen. Ultimately however, her performance is entirely upstaged by Bruce Dern’s restrained cameo as Aileen’s friend Tom who provides a nice (if quite possibly entirely fictionalized) anchor for the film.

Review by Nicola Osborne
Written for EUFS Programme Autumn 2004