Thursday, January 15, 2004
Copyright © Las Vegas Mercury

Film: Road kill

Charlize Theron's monstrous turn doesn't make Monster a killer flick

By Jeannette Catsoulis

In order to enjoy, or even fully experience, Monster, the new feature about serial killer Aileen Wuornos, you must first get past the shock and awe of Charlize Theron's appearance. Taking the film's title literally, Theron and makeup genius Toni G have perpetrated a kind of reverse "Extreme Makeover," transforming the former model into a cross between Nick Nolte and Rosie O'Donnell. But even after you've digested the sun-damaged skin, shaved brows, prank teeth and 30 pounds of excess (and bravely authentic) blubber, you'll still have to negotiate the monstrousness of the performance itself.

Those familiar with news footage or Nick Broomfield's excellent pair of documentaries* will immediately recognize the lumpy awkwardness and butch bravado of the woman hailed by the media as "America's first female serial killer." Yet it wasn't simply her enthusiastic adoption of this overwhelmingly male pastime that spiked Hollywood's interest: Wuornos was a damaged, low-rent prostitute who plied her trade on Florida highways while living a nomadic existence with her female lover. By the time she was caught in 1992--after killing an off-duty police officer--she had murdered and robbed seven luckless johns.

In the view of Monster, most of them deserved it. And one of the many problems with the film is the low hum of justification beneath the sleaze. Although the first murder is triggered by an undeniably horrific encounter with a sadistic, and probably homicidal, customer (convincingly played by "Oz" veteran Lee Tergesen), Wuornos' subsequent victims appear guilty of little more than the desire for a $10 quickie. Nevertheless, the movie remains firmly on Wuornos' side, partly through its depiction of her clients--whose slayings are presented more luridly than any of the film's perfunctory sex scenes--and partly through the vulnerability at the heart of Theron's defensively macho posturing. From the moment we see her, swaggering into a bar for a final drink while contemplating suicide, Theron moves as though she's been carrying Wuornos' weight, physical and emotional, her entire life.

Yet the very magnitude of this achievement creates another, quite different, problem: No one else involved, including writer-director Patty Jenkins, can figure out how to create a living, breathing movie around it. Theron's hulking, pathetic presence steamrolls the entire film and squeezes everyone else to the margins. Most harmed by this is Christina Ricci's magnificently subtle turn as the passive-aggressive Selby Wall, a deceptively innocent and needy kitten who picks Wuornos up in a gay bar and becomes both lover and enabler. Ricci, a talented actress known for choosing difficult roles, is so overpowered here she can do little more than make Selby a manipulative child, whining for food while pretending to be horrified by her girlfriend's methods of income generation.

Monster has sparked such a lather of critical astonishment you'd think Heidi Klum had just conquered Ibsen. But the creamy Theron has a history of solid performances in mediocre movies, even if typecast as the increasingly unhinged wife of scary, pod-like husbands: Keanu Reeves in Devil's Advocate (1997), Kevin Bacon in The Astronaut's Wife (1999). Here, she's left to generate empathy with no backstory to help her (the real Wuornos, executed in 2002, had a past riddled with abuse and abandonment, yet the script does no more than hint at this). That Theron rises to the challenge is remarkable; the challenge for audiences will be to avoid confusing a great performance with a great movie.

* Aileen Wuornos: The Selling of a Serial Killer (Nick Broomfield, 1992) and Aileen: Life and Death of a Serial Killer (Nick Broomfield and Joan Churchill, 2004).
"Well, hon, I think you're going to have a wonderful time at Needlepoint and Pimento Loaf Summer Fun Camp."


Critic's pick

George W. Bush would love the way an illegal immigrant quickly becomes a productive, exploitative member of society in James' Journey to Jerusalem. Ra'anan Alexandrowicz's satire opens the Las Vegas Celebration of Jewish Film, 7:30 tonight, Thu., Jan. 15 at the Suncoast.