 Monster (2003) Charlize Theron gives a heart-wrenching, totally there performance as Aileen Wuornos, transforming herself completely, and yet retaining an essential core humanity that creates that lovely push-pull hate/empathy of great anti-heroes. Unfortunately, Christina Ricci is an incredibly uneven match for Theron's raw, heavyweight acting. It's akin to putting me in the ring with Mike Tyson… well, maybe not that pathetically contradictory, but you get the point. Ricci tries but just can't make it work. Her worst, blankest scenes come in direct opposition to some of Theron's best, twitchiest, wildest-eyed breakdowns. The film tries to play both sides of the issue—that Wuornos was vicious murderer and a horrifically victimized sociopath whose only hope for survival is fighting back by shooting potential johns in the crotch and stealing their money. But it's really clear where the movie's sympathies lie—Wuornos has the most romantic heart, the clearest integrity and intention of everyone in her world, who are almost all victimizers—from rapist tricks, to Ricci's character Selby, a retardedly childish butch girl, whom the film overtly suggests was the impetus for Wuornos's crimes. I'm not saying Wuornos was inhuman—quite the opposite, I think folks like her are desperately sad, and my heart goes out to them (just so long as they don't preempt my forcing sex upon them by shooting me in the crotch). But she couldn't have been quite so innocently bloodthirsty. And at a certain point, unless they're completely nuts, perpetual victims clearly perpetuate their own crises, incapable of existing as anything other than victims. Theron's job is to inject her character with emotion and love and life, and she does it brilliantly—by far the award-winning performance of the year. By award, I mean the infamous Lezzies®, the golden statue in the shape of an open vagina, given out annually by GLAAD. Theron eats up the screen like a big black-eyed shark, so that only a great, mildly comical old character actor by the name of Bruce Dern can possibly hold his own (and he really does). Even the writer/director is no match. There's an ambiguity that the film strives for valiantly, but never precisely achieves. But it's an excellent effort, and despite the overwhelming bleakness, worth a look for the one performance that I promise you will be remembered for many, many years to come: a CG Redd Foxx, as the wisecracking owner of Wuornos's favorite lesbian bar, Mugrunchers.
Review by Crimedog |