monster review

MONSTER

Date : 3^rd April,2004 with SBK, CM, MC at Phoenix Pictures, Oxford.
Cast : Charlize Theron, Christina Ricci,
Director : Debutant Patty Jenkins

This true story is based on the life of Aileen Wournos, “America’s first Woman Serial Killer”. I shall review it with respect to cast performance, direction and storytelling,

The movie sticks as close to the truth as possible and begins with Charlize’s voiceover regarding her lonesome and unhappy childhood. A misfit always, she takes to working as a hooker on the highway just to earn a few dollars to survive, shifting from one place to another. She meets 18 year old Selby Wall, a lesbian coming to grips with her own sexuality and her father’s unacceptance of her “condition” and “sin”.

The movie is fast paced and almost in your face. It almost seems that the Director offers the most brutal view of the movie, in an attempt not to shy away from the fact that her protagonist is a serial killer.

Charlize Theron as Wournos is brilliant. It is not just the staggering cosmetic changeover, with yellow protruding teeth, but the swagger and drawl which are hauntingly in tune with the character, and it is very hard to imagine it is the same actress who acted in Charlie’s Angels.

The script is full of profanities and is taut, without much scope or attempt at homilies and self-pity. Wournos is a small time prostitute on the Florida motorways, and down to her last couple of dollars meets Selby Wall at a bar. Wournos never having had sexual intercourse with a woman is a bit hesitant, but her need for affection and companionship overwhelm her, and she clings on furiously to the relationship.

Soon, armed with better intentions than means, she sets out to change her life and provide for both Selby and herself by getting a job. But, having started prostitution at 13 years of age, she really doesn’t have too much job experience and saleability. It is a poignant reminder of how difficult it is for someone not socially suitable to get a job. Frustrated and increasingly pressured by the timid, emotionally selfish and shallow Selby, Wournos is forced back to her old life.

In one of the most memorable and haunting scenes of the movie, she is tied up, beaten, raped and left to die. She fights for her life, and in a scene where you will her to escape and kill her abuser, she shoots him, buries the body and takes his money. That is the first of her six murders.

The others seem almost out of force of habit, but underlies her need to cling onto her partner and only friend, Sleby wall. Selby seems least bothered and is portrayed as a selfish, young brat, who yearns for the comfortable, pleasurable life. Wournos keeps killing to earn money, even though by now she begins to feel revolted by her own weakness. She begins to love Selby, and believes that in turn she is loved.

Killing innocent people on the same motorway is bound to catch up with her. A young man, a middle aged man who reasons and begs for mercy, and finally a non-uniformed cop, and it is only time till she is caught.

It is the last few scenes, where she still makes sure that Selby reaches home safely, and her shock when Selby testifies against her, make us wonder whether this murderous woman (incorrectly advertised as the first woman serial killer) might actually have led a different path had she been given a job.

The direction is brilliant, very tight, with no time or space to think. There are few loose ends in the movie, and you are left in your seat for a moment or two at the end, shaken by the pure evil and horror in the movie. There are no soppy lines. There is a story to tell and the director does that. There are no sides taken in the story, the director lets any feelings aroused, be that of the audience’s. You are pushed back in your seat, never on the edge of it. You never really want to see more, yet you cannot resist the story.

In Summary, please do not take your children for this movie. If you want to watch a movie, and are tired and annoyed by the normal summer blockbusters around, don’t miss this hard-hitting, truthful and poignant story of a woman serial killer. If you want just one good reason to watch it : Charlize Theron