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Next on my Netflix queue was Monster, for which Charlize Theron won the Best Actress Oscar (film year, 2003; awarding year, 2004). The other nominees for Best Actress in this category were:
21 Grams - Naomi Watts
In America - Samantha Morton
Something's Gotta Give - Diane Keaton
Whale Rider - Keisha Castle-Hughes
This movie also represents the second of five LGBT-themed Oscar movies at the top of my Netflix queue (thanks to my stream of consciousness queuing). Just in case you were keeping track.
Monster tells the true story of serial killer Aileen Wuornos (Theron), a hooker who had been abused as a child and resorted to prostitution when she ran away from home in Michigan and went to Florida at the age of 13. One night in the late 80s, when her car broke down (or she was stranded by her latest john, I wasn't quite clear on that point), she ends up in a local gay bar where she meets Selby (Christina Ricci), who is immediately attracted to "Lee." While Lee recoils at first, the two form a fast friendship that later evolves into a romantic and then physical relationship. Selby leaves the shelter of her father's friends, with whom she was staying to "clear her head" after her father found out she was gay, for a life of cheap hotel rooms and apartments and relative starvation with Lee. To pay the bills, Lee keeps hooking, but one night, when a potential john rapes her and tries to kill her, Lee manages to get free and kill him in self defense. The action is understandable and sympathetic, but the incident incites Lee's inner levee to break, and she begins to attack and kill other clients as if in vengeance for her lot in life and previous abuse. In so doing, she slowly loses her mind. All the while, Selby watches helplessly as her lover seems to lose all connection to reality and as law enforcement officials pick up on the trail of murders and bear down on Lee and Selby.
Apparently, there were documentaries about Wuornos that partially informed this film version. Wuornos was ultimately sentenced to death, a sentence that was completed in 2002. The footnote to the film provides this fact, and it's not really a spoiler – information is widely available about this woman and her actions – but it's important to know when considering what the filmmakers might have been trying to say by making this film to begin with.
All in all, I found this film to be another mixed bag of good points and bad points. To start with the good, much talk was had about how Theron might have won her Oscar because she was de-glamorized for the film to play this woman beaten down by life and poverty, but attributing this performance to make-up only is to do it an injustice. Theron clearly threw herself into the role so much that her facial expressions did not even seem to be hers anymore. Actually, at times, she kind of looked like Katherine Heigl, but that's a digression. My disbelief was completely suspended because Theron played this disturbed, traumatized woman so well, I actually forgot it was her by the end of the film. If she didn't deserve the award, I don't know who did. Of the five nominees, however, I've only seen Something's Gotta Give (and in that film, Diane Keaton was acting like, well, Diane Keaton).
By the same token, I felt Christina Ricci was completely miscast. Maybe it's the fact that she still looks like a child, or maybe it was the fact that Selby was painted to be insecure and immature, but the whole performance felt off to me. Selby elicited some sympathy when her life became a nightmare in the wake of Lee's deteriorating sanity, and it's not Ricci's skill that left something to be desired; I think she did well. I just don't think she was right for the part. Maybe I don't know enough about Wuornos' real-life lover, but I couldn't suspend disbelief for Ricci as Selby, and it left me feeling extreme disjointedness and a sense of surreal about the entire film.
It didn't help that the film actually devoted some focus to Selby's particular story. If the film was supposed to be an examination of Wuornos in an effort to challenge the viewer to sympathize (or at least understand) the motives of this particular serial killer, it didn't make sense to show Selby's familial and other struggles for acceptance of her sexuality. This lack of focus is probably why I had such a hard time buying Ricci in the part. The film had enough to deal with in trying to paint a picture of a troubled woman's descent into madness and violence without adding this other dynamic into the mix. This lack of focus also served to undermine any appreciation or enjoyment I might have had of the film.
While the director of the film, Patty Jenkins, handled what could only be classified as controversial subject matter with deference and balance, the question still remains whether the film achieved what it was aiming to do. For the most part, I think it did, if the point was to dissect Wuornos' motivations and to give her an aspect of humanity in a situation for which she could easily, and possibly rightfully, be vilified without redemption. After all, her life and times were hard, and the first murder could at least be understandable even as all of the subsequent murders were neither understandable nor defensible. The problem is, the film was trying to divide its focus between Wuornos as a killer and Wuornos as a lover, and neither aspect was given a sufficient flush to correlate and to ultimately connect the viewer to her story. Also, by "connect," I don't mean "relate," but if the subject is important enough in this director's eye to film, then there is obviously a message or a stand to make here, and I think the film was trying to take too many stands at once. With focus on Wuornos' life, there should have been a bit more narrative to further explain her childhood, other than hints at the beginning and a hysterical monologue more than halfway through the film as the guilt of Lee's actions begins to overwhelm her. Plus, it was difficult to understand why Theron as Wuornos narrated the piece if some focus was going to be given to the Selby character too. All in all, the movie was just not filmed in a very tight or concentrated manner, and Theron's performance notwithstanding, lacked or at least undermined the emotional punch for which the film seemed so desperately to strive.
As another small gripe, while I quite enjoy Journey's "Don't Stop Believin'," and maybe the lyrics fit some of the sentiments of the film, the use of the song for this film furthered its surreal quality, and surreal does not fit with a story that is supposed to be based on and in reality. Yes, the song was period (the late 80s), but the use of this song struck me as kind of hokey when the subject matter of this film was anything but.
All in all, I did not really care for Monster the film, even if Theron's performance was, in fact, Oscar-caliber. The lack of narrative focus and other elements made Theron's contribution to the film that much more heroic even as the film itself lost me to its mire of related but under serviced themes and/or messages. After some consideration, I believe this film merits a 6.5 between cute/mediocre and shaky/entertaining, and it doesn't pass the test. This film undertook a monster of a topic but ultimately lost its teeth by its finish.