Portrait of a serial killer
Charlize Theron's transformation fuels Monster
The out-of-the-blue brilliance of Charlize Theron's performance as serial killer Aileen "Lee" Wuornos in Patty Jenkins' biopic Monster goes beyond a physical transformation, although the superficial aspects deserve attention. The slender, creamy-skinned South African's beauty disappears under make-up that includes flawless jowls, yellow teeth and freckles that hint at melanoma. Forgoing vanity, Theron gained more than 20 pounds, which she displays at times by wearing undersized underwear in unflattering restroom light.
Theron doesn't just let the make-up act for her, though. Before Monster, she made fine impressions in Celebrity and The Cider House Rules, while barely registering in other just-another-pretty-face roles. Nothing prepared us for her Method-style commitment to playing Wuornos, whom she reveals as loud and uncouth in public, miserable and self-loathing in private. She changes her entire carriage, walking in a galumphing stride with shoulders thrown back, seeming less like a "butch" lesbian than a woman raised by teenage rednecks.
At times in Monster, Theron's fall-back approach seems to be just to play scenes with the opposite of femininity. But her craft reveals a tormented, homicidal woman with both horror and sympathy, and raises Monster above its unsubtle, simplistic qualities.
For her partially fictionalized chronicle, first-time filmmaker Patty Jenkins turns the Wuornos case into a sadly twisted love story. When we meet Wuornos, she's homeless, suicidal and turning tricks on the highway. When she steps into a Florida gay bar to get out of the rain (she claims not to be gay herself), she warily befriends Selby (Christina Ricci), a young lesbian wallflower living with shrill, Bible-thumping family friends.
After some beers, a platonic sleep-over and a romantic turn at the local roller rink, Wuornos and Selby begin falling for each other as two lost souls — Wuornos has seen too much of the real world, while Selby hasn't seen enough of it.
Wuornos turns tricks to raise money to get them a motel room when she's accosted by a brutal john ("Oz"'s Lee Tergesen). In a sequence that provokes audience bloodlust á la Ms. 45 and other rape victim/vengeance stories, Wuornos is sexually abused and tortured until she manages to kill her assailant. Rather than call the police, Wuornos takes his money and runs off with the unknowing Selby.
With cash in hand and True Love (she thinks) in her arms, Wuornos believes her fortunes have finally turned: But Selby's naivete becomes less charming and more selfish when the couple run low on funds. Ricci makes Selby seem almost star-struck when she learns that Wuornos is a prostitute: "Men pay you to be with them." She grows more quietly conniving when she encourages Wuornos to sell her body to support them.
When Wuornos goes back to walking the streets, she discovers that, having killed once, it's easier to shoot men than to screw them. She begins to see herself as akin to a revenge-movie heroine — she steals to hold onto her lover, and only preys on men already deserving of death. Monster gives us glimpses of Wuornos' terrible childhood, but doesn't let her off the hook. When she meets potential victims, the men become older and less threatening each time, chipping away at her justifications for murder.
Jenkins and Theron work to make us empathize with Wuornos' poverty and isolation, but the filmmaker tends to condescend to her characters. The musical cues prove campy — Wuornos and Selby first kiss to Journey's "Don't Stop Believing" — as if we're supposed to think that their poor taste in pop songs make them all the more pitiful.
Like Boys Don't Cry, Monster will be remembered more for its central performance than it's story, although Theron and Jenkins take pains to portray Wuornos as neither outright villain nor purely victim. Wuornos may have been a monster, but the film doesn't want her to be misunderstood.