Monster [R]

Aileen Wuornos has led a tough life that has left her on the highway as a hitchhiking hooker with no one to love. One night to get out of the rain, she stumbles into a gay bar and meets Selby who buys her a drink and offers her a shower and a warm bed for the night. Soon love has found Aileen, but the two girls’ life together proves to be rough as Selby can’t work and Aileen becomes the primary breadwinner. Without any real experience for the workforce, Aileen is forced to do what she knows and prostitute, but shit hits the fan when she kills a client who attempts to rape her and the murder proves to be a better way to get money for her life with Selby. 

Based on the true story of the ‘first feminist serial-killer’ Monster is a harrowing movie that leaves a real ache in the gut, but at the same time there is something really engaging and sad about the whole story. The first murder and the serial killings prove to take the backseat behind the striking romance that grows between Aileen and Selby. I don’t really know how to feel about this flick: it was confronting and disturbing and left me feeling a bit dazed when I walked out of the lecture theatre, but now thinking back on it for my screen response, I can see that it was really quite well-done and actually quite moving in a very melancholy and doomed sort of sense. You all can’t rent it out and make up your own minds. 

Aileen Wuornos has led a tough life that has left her on the highway as a hitchhiking hooker with no one to love. One night to get out of the rain, she stumbles into a gay bar and meets Selby who buys her a drink and offers her a shower and a warm bed for the night. Soon love has found Aileen, but the two girls’ life together proves to be rough as Selby can’t work and Aileen becomes the primary breadwinner. Without any real experience for the workforce, Aileen is forced to do what she knows and prostitute, but shit hits the fan when she kills a client who attempts to rape her and the murder proves to be a better way to get money for her life with Selby. 

You know, I think what really fascinated me about this movie was the gender roles and the conflicting characters of the two women. It’s often said that opposites attracted and you can’t get much more 180-degree different than Charlize and Christina in this movie. 

Charlize Theron won the Academy Award for her performance as Aileen and when you see her on the screen, it’s no real wonder why. Most of us recognise Charlize as the beautiful, feminine, swan-like woman of the screen, but here she’s masculine, rough-edged, foul-mouthed, and aggressive. All of this so much so that it’s really hard, for me at least, to see the beauty that Selby saw in her. 

On the other end of the spectrum we’ve got Christina Ricci as Selby and she’s the epitome of femininity. With her short hair, wide eyes, pixie nose, and soft, high-pitched voice, she’s absolutely adorable and the added feature of the broken arm really hits home that notion of female fragility. 

Starring Bruce Dern, Lee Tergesen, Annie Corley, Pruitt Taylor Vince, Marco St. John, Marc Macaulay, Scott Wilson, and Rus Blackwell, Monster is a confronting and yet beautifully tragic film that’s filled with brilliant performances, love, drama, violence, and murder. It’s a pretty influential biopic that will definitely make you think.