Monster

The 2003 film, MONSTER, raises the question of whether we should sympathize with murderers. This is a bold question to raise considering the emotion within that subject, and in the film a naturalism allows it to be asked cleanly. It tells of Aileen Wuornos, spectacled as "America's First Woman Serial Killer" back in the 1990's. Here, she is played by Charlize Theron, who, in real life is quite beautiful, but in MONSTER appears as a grotesque creature. She is certainly a victim of circumstance, having been abused as a child, and being so impoverished she was forced to become a hooker. She talks to her buddy at the bar about how people don't understand the situation society puts people into and he, a Vietnam veteran, agrees, talking about how at some point, you have no choice and no other way to go. This seems overly-sympathetic, but the film doesn't shy away from ugliness, showing Aileen as an atrocious, amoral person, well-substantiated by the astonishingly natural performance by Theron: whose performance is not only a metamorphoses, but irrespective of the camera and the audience by simply conveying the persona of  Wuornos. As Wuornos creeps around town, she meets a young 18 year old living with relatives in order to cure her lesbianism, but Wuornos takes the girl in, promising fun times, money, and a barrage of fantasies. This is such an authentic look at a killer, that it is endearing in its truthfulness. It never does what so many other films have done with similar murderous subjects: glamorizing them. Take, for example, BONNIE & CLYDE, which took two real-life, trashy, ugly, murderers, and glamorized them with sexy actors: Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty. MONSTER shows its subject for what she is: trash. And yet the film is not overcome but that, but works as an intriguing character study of not just Aileen Wuornos, but he people she managed to coerce.
Monster: ★★★1/2