Monster

Released 2003
Stars Charlize Theron, Christina Ricci, Bruce Dern
Directed by Patty Jenkins

What Charlize Theron achieves in Patty Jenkins' "Monster" isn't a performance but an embodiment. With courage, art and charity, she empathizes with Aileen Wuornos, a damaged woman who committed seven murders. She does not excuse the murders. She simply asks that we witness the woman's final desperate attempt to be a better person than her fate intended.

Wuornos received a lot of publicity during her arrest, trial, conviction and 2002 execution for the Florida murders of seven men who picked her up as a prostitute (although one wanted to help her, not use her). The headlines, true as always to our compulsion to treat everything as a sporting event or an entry for the Guinness Book, called her "America's first female serial killer." Her image on the news and in documentaries presented a large, beaten-down woman who did seem to be monstrous. Evidence against her was given by Selby Wall (Christina Ricci), an 18-year-old who became the older woman's naive lesbian lover and inspired Aileen's dream of earning enough money to set them up in a "normal" lifestyle. Robbing her clients led to murder, and each new murder seemed necessary to cover the tracks leading from the previous one.

Summary by Roger Ebert

Charlize Theron's performance is the definition of a tour de force. From watching some documentary footage, it's clear she truly transformed herself into this damaged woman who crossed over to become a serial killer. As a rule, I don't feel sorry for criminals, but this woman had no chance in life. To be repeatedly sexually assaulted as a preteen, kicked out on the streets at 13, and pregnant at 14, her future as a prostitute was well mapped. That certainly doesn't excuse what she did, but it does let us understand why. --Bill Alward, June 30, 2004