A Monstrous Distortion of the Truth? (Monster (DVD))

Member Name: sandrabarber

Product:	Monster (DVD)
Date:	10/06/05 (439 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Theron's performance

Disadvantages: Far from truthful

‘Monster’ is the movie that propelled Charlize Theron to international megastardom and won her a Best Actress Oscar to boot. It is the ‘true’ story of the infamous Aileen Wournos, prostitute and serial killer, who was executed in 2002 for the murders of seven men while going about her business on the Florida state highway.

Aileen Wournos’ childhood was horrendous. Some of the ‘facts’ written about her are open to conjecture, but it is fairly certain that she was beaten by her father, sexually abused by her brother and grandfather, and raped by someone else close. She had no real friends and was constantly teased. Before hitting her teens, she was selling blow-jobs for cigarettes and soon after that began having sex with any boy or man who looked her way. She became pregnant in her early teens – some say by her grandfather, some say by the local paedophile, some say by any of the innumerable males who had lain between her legs. Her family made her give away the baby and then disowned her. It was the depths of winter, and she went to live in the woods.

Before long she was patrolling the highways as a hitch-hiking hooker, using the money to buy booze, cigarettes and the occasional bed for the night.

It is at this point in Aileen’s life that ‘Monster’ begins.

One day Aileen finds herself in a gay bar, where she meets a girl called Selby (played by Christina Ricci). Selby is herself a troubled individual, struggling to express her sexuality within the confines of a highly religious and disapproving family. Aileen and Selby recognise in each other a sense of the outsider, and a short friendship they embark upon an affair.

In Aileen, Selby has found an escape, someone who will take her away from her family and who will work to keep her. Simultaneously, Aileen feels herself loved and genuinely desired for the first time in her life.

When Aileen (now calling herself Lee) is raped by a punter, the demons of her childhood are resurrected. In retaliation, she shoots him dead.

Determined to keep this a secret from Selby, Aileen moves the pair to a new home (for which you can read new motel room) and tries to get herself a regular job. Naturally, with Aileen’s lack of social skills and work experience, she finds no work, and is forced to return to highway prostitution.

At this point, Aileen’s killing spree really begins. She is unable to actually have sex with any of her punters since the rape, but Selby’s demands for a comfortable lifestyle hang heavy on her shoulders. She flags men down on the road in order to kill them, and steal their cars, valuables and money.

Eventually, inevitably, Aileen and Selby are caught.

From here the film focuses on Aileen herself, her incarceration, confession and trial. Selby, who did not know about most of the murders, is absolved by Aileen and then turns witness against her.

In terms of the direction, there is nothing of note to say about ‘Monster’. There are no fancy camera angles, no sweeping metaphorical panoramas, no startling close-ups or atmospheric long-shots. Were it not for the explicit language and violence, it could easily have been one of those made-for-TV movies you used to see a lot of in the afternoons.

‘Monster’ is not a movie about direction really, but more one of performance.

Much was in the press about Theron’s amazing physical transformation when she played this role, including gaining 20-30 lbs, and indeed her resemblance to Aileen is remarkable. More remarkable than this, however, is her performance. Theron embodies Aileen so convincingly that you soon forget that you are watching an actress playing a role. Her accent, her walk, her mannerisms and facial contortions all give depth and truth to her performance and enable her to say much more about her character than is in the script.

The let down for me in this film was the character of Selby. Ricci does not give a bad performance, but the character in the movie is nothing like the real Selby. In real life, Selby was a very large redhead, whereas Ricci is an extremely slight brunette. In real life Selby was not kept by Aileen, but worked several different jobs, and often very long hours, throughout their relationship.

In other movies, Selby’s fictionalisation wouldn’t matter. But in this film, where so much trouble has been taken to get the character of Aileen just right, it seems strangely at odds to have Selby so untruthful.

Also, by casting Selby as a huge financial drain on Aileen, the movie adds a motive for Aileen’s killing spree that simply did not exist.

Anyone who has read one of the many books written about Aileen Wournos, or who has seen either of the two documentaries by Nick Bloomfield, will know that getting to the truth of Aileen’s motives is an impossible task. Though without doubt Aileen had the most terrible childhood, many myths have grown to shroud those years. And no one has ever really got to the bottom of whether or not Aileen was actually raped by the first man she killed. Before she died, Aileen changed her story continuously, sometimes claiming not to have been raped, sometimes claiming to have been raped by that first guy, and sometimes claiming to have been raped by all of the guys she murdered.

Rather than attempt to unravel the mystery of Aileen, ‘Monster’ has actually added to the confusion by presenting some ‘facts’ as they were and completely distorting others. This gives the film a lack of focus and leaves you asking as many questions at the end as you had at the beginning.

Also, the movie is for me rather too much in sympathy with Wournos. By presenting her as a woman with a genuine motive (at least for the first killing), and as a woman who is manipulated by the emotional demands of her partner, it appears to give rather too much credence to her behaviour. Writer, director and cast seem to have forgotten that – no matter what horrors lay in Aileen’s upbringing – the woman was a severely disturbed, psychopathic and sociopathic danger to society.

That said, however, I do recommend this film. The story is involving, the pace is reasonably brisk, and the performance of Charlize Theron is one of the best I have ever seen and is in itself worth watching the movie for.

Just don’t expect any answers and don’t believe everything you see and hear.

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