“Monster,” a biographical shocker and tear-jerker about the late Aileen Wuornos, a Florida hooker executed for a murder spree, has nowhere to go but down and settles there with a luridly stagnating vengeance. However, it’s also cleverly timed to make an under-the-wire Academy Award contender of Charlize Theron, who avidly welcomes the opportunity to conceal her beauty behind a deglamorized and sometimes ferocious facade.
A two-character fable of ignorance and desperation, “Monster” concentrates on the failed romance between its dead-end protagonist and a smitten but also treacherously dependent young woman named Selby Wall, played by Christina Ricci. They meet at a bar when Selby, a hapless transplant from the Midwest, is staying with family friends in Florida. She seems to mistake Aileen for sweetheart, protector and breadwinner.
The murders coincide gruesomely with efforts to provide a cozy nest for Selby. Accustomed to soliciting tricks as a hitchhiker, Aileen commences killing clients in order to pocket their cash and appropriate their cars. There’s reason to believe that writer-director Patty Jenkins may have it in for Selby, who testified against Wuornos.
Indeed, there’s an inadvertently funny shot on the witness stand where Miss Ricci points a literal finger of guilt at her former consort, clearly favored by Miss Jenkins as an unrepentant natural-born nihilist, who exits cursing her fate and societal norms with a last rhetorical breath.
The narration, delivered by Miss Theron in a voice that seems rather too perky for the context, formulates the Wuornos tale of woe and wrath as an example of the American Dream abused and mocked. According to the character, she found herself a disillusioned romantic after buying into girlish visions of popularity and gratification. She anticipates the fling with Selby in a suspiciously ironic vein: “All I had left was love.”
Miss Ricci’s diminutive stature and unblemished face accentuate the alterations in Miss Theron’s appearance, which emphasize a large frame, mottled complexion, some boldly flabby flesh in disrobing scenes and oversized teeth that facilitate frequent grimaces and scowls. Since you’re always conscious of how much effort has gone into transforming a beautiful actress into a homely and ungainly impostor, it’s easier to think of this performance as a makeup and denture triumph than a powerful or revealing emotional exploration.
If Patty Jenkins were a deft sentimentalist, the principal characters might have evoked some of the pathos one recalls from “Midnight Cowboy.” However, you’re never seriously tempted to credit Aileen or Selby with the sort of losers’ gallantry or fundamentally soft hearts that dignified Dustin Hoffman’s Ratso Rizzo and Jon Voight’s Joe Buck while sharing wretched quarters in Manhattan. Their feminine counterparts don’t seem to be doing the best they can for each other despite being down and out.
*1/2
TITLE: “Monster”
RATING: R (Sustained squalid emphasis; frequent profanity and graphic violence; occasional sexual candor, with fleeting nudity and simulations of lesbian intercourse)
CREDITS: Written and directed by Patty Jenkins.
RUNNING TIME: 111 minutes
MAXIMUM RATING: FOUR STARS
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