Bleak hearts
Monster
IMDB
dir. Patty Jenkins
starring: Charlize
Theron, Christina Riici
 |
| One
half of a monster performance |
This is one of those trainwreck movies where you know
that doom is just around the corner but you are unable
to turn away from the fascinating final moments. In
the case of the story of Aileen Wornos, the executed
serial killer who had the distinction of being one of
the few, most publicized female killers in criminal
history, doom is coming from nearly the ten minute mark
of the film.
Monster
is in fact a monster of a film, mostly due to the powerful,
ferocious performance of Charlize Theron. In examining
her performance it's hard to get away from the special
effects of it, the makeup that transformed her from
one of the most beautiful women on film into the battered
(though nevertheless human) face of Wornos. There have
been a good many opportunities for the audience both
in the cinema and in the news to see the real Wornos.
I haven't seen any so I won't be comparing the reality
to the adaptation.
Theron as Wornos appears at the beginning of the
film as a drifter on the edge of ending her life,
one of her few possessions a large revolver. We learn
later that she has been a prostitute most of her lfe,
since the age of 14. We see her as an adult, a vulgar,
repellent and defensive creature who is thoroughly
alone in the world. It takes quite a job to soften
her into a sympathetic character but really director
and writer Patty Jenkins is not concerned with changing
the final opinion on Wornos as a murderer as much
as humanizing her. The 'monster' in the title is the
failed human that Wornos has become and who can't
break through because of her past, who has as few
emotional tools as she has actual possessions. And,
as we see later, she still has her gun.
Perhaps not willing to jig the real story too much,
the turning point in the film comes very early but
there are several points along the way where a more
capable human could have turned off. It's a fascinating
structure. Wornos meets the young lonely lesbian (Christina
Riici) who she believes she can have a fantasy life
with. Later she tries to go legit by searching for
real jobs. Even later she can even escape her murderous
trail if only she could just head for the horizon
and keep on going. But , it's a trainwreck movie so
she can't get off the track. Her character demands
that she stay on. This is because 'the turning point'
in the film, the event which drives all the action
despite all these other opportunities to go in other
directions happens early. This is the scene of the
horrible rape that electrifies and casts its shadow
on every event after.
This is the event where Jenkins believes 'the monster'
was born. Wornos has picked up a bad trick, one of
the men who themselves kill anonymously on lonely
back roads. Perhaps this man has killed other prostitutes.
Perhaps one monster has given birth to another. It's
not explored. Wornos, tied and brutalized in a car,
the woman who had no cause to live previously, now
struggles like an animal and survives to kill her
would-be killer. Her scream after blasting the human
monster is filled with rage, triumph and hurt. It's
one of the few raw, in-the-gut scenes that make Monster
real and will likely echo in the memories of Academy
voters.
Monster
is entirely successful in such scenes where Theron/Wornos
is ablaze with ferocity. The combination of anger
and physical strength (her character towers over even
most men), especially in the murder scenes in the
rest of the film where the men are the victims - the
tables turned, powers through the stark savagery of
what has become the mean of her existence. This is
what the killer movie has failed to become in other
films. The killers are snide, speechifying caricatures
of what we imagine these psychopaths to be. Or they
are drooling hicks with accents. Theron/Wornos outwardly
is the trashy, foul redneck wanderer, but she has
an impetus that most other killers have lacked.
Where Monster is
not successful (though it reaches) is in the other
impetus in Wornos' life, her relationship with Selby,
the shy then manipulating girl who Wornos takes into
her life and for whom she ostensibly has been working
for. It is not so much that Shelby's character seems
so unworthy of love, it's that the bleakness of their
existence never really breaks through into even an
ideal of happiness. Even though the audience can see
the reality of their relationship (the grubbiness
of their motels, the selfishness of Selby's character),
we deserve to see the ideal of how Wornos sees their
relationship, their romance and dreams. We can see
the idea but not the ideal of their relationship.
Without that heart it's not possible even to grasp
at what Wornos feels she is working towards when she
kills on a lonely road.
