Charlize Theron stars in Monster, a shockingly moving film that burrows deep beneath the tabloid-sized headline stories on Aileen Wuornos, the man-hating serial killer executed last year in Florida.
(46 votes)
2.
2 Disc Set
Charlize Theron (The Italian Job, Trapped) explodes in a magnetic, Oscar-winning performance (Best Actress 2003) as convicted killer Aileen Wuornos. Severely abused and unloved, Aileen immersed herself in the dangerous world of highway prostitution...until she met Selby Wall (Christina Ricci, Sleepy Hollow), a naive girl who was Aileen's last chance at a normal life. But ultimately all Aileen understood was violence, and nobody imagined the nightmare that awaited the seven men standing in the way of her happiness. A critically-acclaimed film from writer/director Patty Jenkins.
(44 votes)
3.
Nearing suicidal despair, Wuornos (Charlize Theron) wanders into a Florida bar, where she meets Selby Wall (Christina Ricci), a young woman sent by her parents to live with an aunt in order to “cure her homosexuality.” Wuornos—victim of a tragic, abusive upbringing—quickly falls in love, and clings to Selby like a life preserver. Unable to find a legitimate job but desperate to sustain her relationship with Selby, Wuornos continues working as a prostitute. When one of her johns turns violent, Wuornos shoots the man in self-defense; the first in her tragic string of killings.
(45 votes)
4.
Aileen Wuornos had a difficult and cruel childhood plagued by abuse and drug use in Michigan, becoming a prostitute (and pregnant) by the age of 13. Wuornos eventually moved to Florida where she became a highway prostitute, servicing the desires of semi-truck drivers. This movie focuses on the nine month period in 1989 and 1990 during which she had a lesbian relationship with a woman named Selby, and during which she also began murdering any of her clientele who tried to rape her.
(40 votes)
5.
In a revelatory performance, Charlize Theron stars in the shocking and moving true-life story of Aileen Wuornos, a prostitute executed last year in Florida after being convicted of murdering six men. While Wuornos confessed to the six murders, including a policeman, she claimed to have killed only in self-defense, resisting violent assaults while working as a prostitute.
Bravely burrowing beneath the tabloid headlines about America’s first female serial killer—and the media’s sordid designation of Wuornos as an unrepentant monster—in the midst of the horrors and pathologies, first-time writer-director Patty Jenkins unearths an unlikely love story between two misfits.
Nearing suicidal despair, Wuornos wanders into a Florida bar, where she meets Selby Wall (Christina Ricci), a young woman sent by her parents to live with an aunt in order to “cure her homosexuality.” Wuornos—victim of a tragic, abusive upbringing—quickly falls in love, and clings to Selby like a life preserver. Unable to find a legitimate job but desperate to sustain her relationship with Selby, Wuornos continues working as a prostitute. When one of her johns turns violent, Wuornos shoots the man in self-defense; the first in her tragic string of killings.
Critics have universally praised Charlise Theron's performance in Monster and the praise, for once, is astonishingly deserved. The gorgeous star of The Italian Job and The Cider House Rules vanishes into the character of Aileen Wuornos, a real-life serial killer and prostitute who murdered at least seven men in Florida. Monster traces her relationship with a young woman named Selby (Christina Ricci), which intertwines with Wuornos's murder spree. This remarkable movie finds compassion for Wuornos but unflinchingly faces her brutal crimes; Theron expresses this woman's horrific life history without softening her terrifying, dead-eyed stare. This is a gripping, devastating performance, a physical and psychological transformation comparable to Robert DeNiro's in Raging Bull. The movie's moral and emotional complexity wouldn't succeed without this searing performance--but succeed it does, and it will stick with you for some time afterwards. Those interested in the back story may also want to seek out Nick Broomfield's documentaries on Wuornos. --Bret Fetzer
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