charlize theron, christina ricci
bruce dern, lee tergesen
bubba baker
unfashionable observations rating: B+
Monster tells the story of Aileen Wuornos (Theron), a woman for whom it would seem God has shown no mercy. Forced to sell her body by the age of 13 so that her siblings could eat, Aileen knows no other life. Prostitution is what has sustained her since she can remember, and she doesn’t really mind it all that much at this point. However, she can still remember the innocence of her childhood, when she would dream of becoming a beautiful actress, and having someone love and care for her. But alas, those dreams seem doomed to remain just that—dreams.
We encounter Aileen in Florida, living her life as a highway prostitute, catering to the desires of semi-truckers for the right price. Mistakenly finding herself in a lesbian bar, Aileen meets Selby (Ricci), a shy, introspective, and sweet girl whose main attraction for Aileen is her innocent sensibility. While Selby is instantly captivated by Aileen's demeanor, Aileen herself adamantly declares that she’s no “dike.” However, these prove to be the defensive words of a wounded creature, for Aileen eventually sees Selby as her one and only chance of living out at least part of her childhood dream: that of having someone by her side who truly loves and cares for her. So what if her true love is a woman?
In an effort to shield Selby from the horrors of the real world—the horrors of Aileen’s everyday life—Aileen attempts to achieve a kind of idealized version of a relationship between them. She promises Selby the world in an effort to keep her happy, and blissfully unaware of her sacrifices. Of course, Aileen cannot deliver the world to Selby, but she tries.
Aileen’s first plan is to run away with Selby—to get out of their current ruts, and find a real place of their own. Curiously, Aileen decides all of this after only their first date together. She’s determined to salvage her childhood dream, and Selby’s innocence, for she reminds her of herself as a child, so full of potential and imagination. But running away requires money—and a lot of it. Aileen therefore decides to hook for the entire day, one John after another, in an effort to make as much money as possible before their second date that night, where Aileen would propose her plan to Selby, and show her that she’s serious about it by presenting all the money to her.
But of course, nothing can go as planned in Aileen Wuornos’ world. On her last hook, she meets a seemingly nice guy who takes her into the woods to take advantage of her services. However, the next thing we know is that Aileen is just regaining consciousness inside the car, naked, bruised, bleeding, hands bound by rope. Aileen’s nightmare is just beginning.
The rape scene is a visceral, revolting picture of how a person like Aileen is perceived by others. Representing the lowest class of society through her poverty and prostitution, Aileen is a prime target for dehumanization, exploitation, and objectification. Like a free pass into a world of utter libertine debauchery reminiscent of the sexually fascistic writings of the Marquis de Sade (such as The 120 Days of Sodom, on which Pasolini’s Salo was loosely based), Aileen is the rape without consequence, the murder without punishment, the abuse without discovery. After all, who would believe a whore? Indeed, who would want to believe a whore? Aileen is seen as the quintessential object of our hedonism, sin, and secrecy.
Therefore, when Aileen manages to loosen the rope binding her hands together just enough to pull the trigger of the handgun under the seat of the car, unloading on her sexual predator, we cannot in all good conscience condemn this woman. At worst, it was a terrible situation that called for self-defense; at best, it was what the guy deserved.
However, this sets a dangerous precedent for someone in Aileen’s situation. She finds that killing the guy has provided her with two things: his car, which she can now use to move herself and Selby around, and his wallet. All of a sudden, she has made a lot more than the $20 she would have made had this been a run-of-the-mill hook. For someone desperate to live out the dream in her mind that now involves the innocent Selby, this is indeed quite a coup. Sure, it involved a great sacrifice—both on her part, and surely on his—but don’t all dreams?
When Aileen kills another one of her Johns for no apparent reason, we immediately see what has happened. She has turned the tables on those with whom she deals: No longer willing to play the role of the one being dehumanized and objectified, she sets out on a kind of revenge spree where she attempts to make right the wrongs that have befallen her since she was a child. For Aileen, life becomes a zero-sum game; someone’s going to get fucked, so to speak. And this time, it won’t be Aileen.
The movie’s ultimate message is not that Aileen is the “monster.” She isn’t. Everyone is the monster—everyone she encounters, from the Johns who take advantage of her situation, to the “respectable,” ordinary people she meets when looking for a straight, 9-to-5 job. In one scene that is almost as horrifying as the rape scene, Aileen sits across the desk of an obnoxious lawyer who is reviewing her application for a secretarial position at his firm. Yes, he was probably right to deny the application, seeing as how Aileen had no resume, no past work experience, and no education. However, he was absolutely revolting in the way in which he denied her application, insulting her dignity as a human being, as if she were unworthy of even a modicum of respect. It is this theme of social dehumanization that is the heart and soul of this movie. And it is a very real phenomenon that most of us don’t even notice because it has become so commonplace. This movie provides us with the face of such social evils, and that face is shocking, for it is our own.
Charlize Theron gives the performance of her life, and the performance of the year. The entire film is driven, guided, and realized through Theron’s brilliant, uncharacteristic performance as Aileen. The sincerity, the pain, the frustration, and the loneliness that is at the very essence of Aileen Wuornos is captured by Theron in a simple smile—a desperate attempt by a sad woman to cover up the tragedy of her unrealized dreams. Theron plays her character with such a note of nervous optimism that we can instinctively understand why Aileen is the woman she is: society breeds such fantastic, idealized notions of life that we are all but doomed to be unhappy in our quest to fulfill them. Aileen never quite lets those fanciful notions of true love, beauty, and fame disappear from her mind. We cannot blame her for being a dreamer, but at least we see how it is that Aileen is such a tragic figure.
Unfortunately for Theron, Christina Ricci’s performance is anything but brilliant. In fact, it is such a detached, emotionally insincere performance that—notwithstanding the movie’s intriguing moral dilemmas and Theron’s great performance—it greatly detracts from the film’s emotional punch. Ricci is so uninspired and miscast as Selby that the romance between Aileen and Selby seems almost contrived on screen. The role of Selby required an actress who knows how to be emotional, innocent, and even child-like, as contrasted with the role of Aileen, which required the same emotion, but with a hard outer shell. Given that Ricci is famous for being a non-emotional bitch (a la The Adams Family, Buffalo 66, and Pumpkin), it is surprising that Ricci has anything to do with this film.
Monster is a tour de force of ideas that question the very foundations of our social structures. It presents us with a most interesting moral question: Is social dehumanization and objectification any worse than murder? The suggestion is that it might not be. And if that’s the case, then why is it so widespread? After all, the damage is not merely psychological, but easily extends to the physical as well. Indeed, rape itself is premised on this notion of objectification. But because the question does not have an immediately obvious answer, or even a very convincing one, this film succeeds in shedding new light on a pervasive, but largely unacknowledged, social problem that deserves our serious contemplation.
I’d give Patty Jenkins’ Monster a B+.
