SPOILERS
'Love conquers all. Every cloud has a silver lining. Faith can move mountains. Love will always find a way. Everything happens for a reason. Where there's life there's hope.
Well, they gotta tell you something'
Monster 9.1
Aileen Wuornos was a real person, a prostitute who really killed some of her clients. We see her as a bruised little girl, dreaming of the women, and crucially relationships, she sees in the movies. Things look fairly warm and positive with dreamy music. Then 'one day it just stopped', and we cut to her sat alone, suicidal at the side of the road in the wet, with a gun. She meets Selby, a shy, smiley loner. They bond over drinks and spend the night in bed together, nothing happened but the connection was made. Their relationship is interesting from the start. In some ways they are polar opposites, Selby is very innocent looking, and has no attitude or front, Aileen is damaged, defensive and almost all front.
They seem like a good match in the sense that they are both lost in the world and both need a friend. To begin with Selby pays for everything even though she is clearly the younger and more immature of the two, at least on the outside. She is pretty keen pretty quick, and Aileen has plenty of opportunities to rob her but prefers the genuine company of another person. Before long Aileen is showing her off about town and finding ways to get money to keep her happy. The love story aspect is done very well with lots of sly looks, cute awkwardness and flirting, it even reminded me of the early sections of the Before trilogy, probably the benchmark for characters falling in love of film.
I have seen this a few times before, and after 15 mins, whilst they were skating, I knew I was totally under it's spell again. It gave me a film high (especially knowing how good it was going to get) which I only get from the special ones. This is a film which gives you a level of emotional involvement which I rarely find, and it only increases throughout.
When things start to get more extreme, I imagine it would split audiences in terms of how they react and whether Aileen is atall justified in the course she takes. The scene we see with the guy who ties her up is so awful it has always stayed with me. This film does extremes very well, it glides from high to low with ease, most of the kills pass and the film treats them almost like they're nothing. There is no doubt she deserved better in her life, and she does show complex signs of remorse and sympathy but of course she does start to invite the treatment she punishes them for. I think most of what she does is revenge for a life that was so full of promise as a young child, but that since deteriorated to almost nothing. Interestingly she talks about being a child and seeing a beautiful ferris wheel called The Monster, which may give the film it's title. If so it is referring to a lost childhood, evoking Citizen Kane's famous Rosebud.
It's set in 1989/90 and is shot in a way which feels convincingly from that time. It has a low budget, almost dull look to it. I'm sure this isn't a mistake, the look makes it seem more grimy and bleak. It reminded me of another great serial killer film Henry, Portrait of a serial killer, which looks similar and is if anything more extreme.
The killings are all very real looking, i'm glad the film avoids that cliche of someone being shot once and dying the next second. All her victims crawl away or something for a minute before they actually die, so they have time to realise what's happened. The last killing of the innocent guy, when she was under no threat was almost too difficult for her. She knew he didn't deserve it so didn't want to hear about his life atall, to avoid extra guilt. We hear her crying out and pulling the trigger as it cuts to the next scene.. so we don't see the guy actually get shot. Perhaps to spare us from seeing a totally innocent party getting murdered. She clearly is doing this to protect herself and to keep her secret, whereas all the others were some form of revenge. Was she born a killer or made one? She's not a psycho like some of the other film characters, she knows the difference between right and wrong. A more interesting question is; had she not fallen in love would she have had a better life? Does she do it all for love? I think mostly yes. This isn't the first film to explore this but I think there are none better, Wild at Heart, Badlands and perhaps Leon are up there with this for me
The entire production is rightly dominated by Charlize Theron's astounding performance as Aileen. Christina Ricci does a good job as Selby but next to her she is entirely eclipsed. Almost everything Theron does adds to the effectiveness of her backstory or her thoughts as above. A hard upbringing, being treated poorly upon sight by most people, never really being wanted or loved, always been used, never appreciated, it's all there to see in her attitude towards people. Alot of what she does and says with Selby is purely off emotions, she's full of contradictions, she makes promises and threats. She always calls people 'man', to appear confident but she never really seems it. To say she's damaged is an understatement. To communicate all of this, her performance is highly physical, not just in terms of hair and makeup and weight gain (which in itself was remarkable enough) but she walks and stands like a man, has an awkward smile and her face is so expressive but also still fits into Aileen's personality of being defensive when in public. I think it's on a performance level compatible with Day Lewis in There Will be Blood. It's a real departure, and a brave move, for one of the most beautiful and glamorous actresses. She won the Oscar (the year that Return of the King equalled the record of 11 wins) and rightly so of course. Anyone else winning would have been a farce. A performance of this level makes us relate so strongly to the character, no matter what they have done prior, that it is always a joy to watch.
She is phenomenal all the way through but still there is one standout moment of physical acting perfection. Like with the Goodfellas nervous laugh moment mentioned in The Kitchen review, it can show us a great deal about the character in a second, with nothing actually being pointed out, it just relies on our human ability to read faces. And I have mentioned the brilliant conversation scene late on in No Country being one of my favourite of the sort, this beats it by a way.
The scene comes about halfway. The 2 are sat on the bed after Aileen throws the money at Selby. Selby has had her cast off and Aileen is in just a towel, so they are both exposed in a symbolic way. They talk about the arm cast coming off, Selby asks if her last job was ok, Aileen says it was because, 'I knew I was coming home to you'. Now Aileen thinks for a second, then says 'I love you', and she hears it back. She has probably never said, and certainly never heard it, earnestly before. For a second she isn't sure if it's real, she can't compute and you can see this in her sublimely acted reaction. Theron is so convincing in this 30 seconds, realising that these are real feelings and they are reciprocated. It's in her darting eyes, her intake of breath, her voice, her head moving and uneasy twitching. They then start to make love. Aileen has been a sex worker for years but this seems all new to her and is a drastic departure from her usual attitude. She doesn't know where to put her hands, she's just soaking it up, the feeling of love and tenderness. She has been the expert and leader on everything else the couple have done so far, but now Selby is teaching her. (It reminded me a bit of Whoopi Goldberg in The Color Purple, who has been raped all her life and so doesn't want to have sex) It all happens whilst a great song is playing, Crimson and Clover by Tommy James & The Shondells. Lyrically it fits the meaning of the scene but more importantly it fades slightly during the dialogue, and the 'I love you' line comes during a second of quiet in the song, an example of sound editing helping the drama. For me it's one of the greatest scenes in all of film. The first time I watched the film years ago, once it had finished, I watched this scene over and over, which I did again this time.
There is another almost perfect moment, when Selby testifies in court and Aileen watches her walk in then knowingly and acceptingly knods at her, and once again we see what she is feeling and feel it with her. She is finally resigned to her fate, although there is still time for one last childish outburst at the judge. This would of course have been simply a recreation of actual events, which also plays out over extremely well chosen music. The last thing we see is her being marched out of court, having been sentenced to death and disappearing into blinding light. She turns back to look behind her for a moment, I think lamenting what could have been if her past has been different.
Written and Directed by first time filmmaker Patty Jenkins, I haven't seen any of her other work but she also did the recent Wonder Woman films. She uses some good old fashioned technical skill here with the sound editing and abrupt cuts to show contrasting moods and feelings and make the film feel more fast paced. There are no scenes which aren't needed. This is a biopic so maybe less to read into it but overall I think one of the messages is that this is what can happen to people if they're beaten down constantly and ultimately driven to get their own back.
It may not quite have the filmmaking layering of some others i've done but what it does have is pretty much all exquisite, and it stays with you in a different way. This is more gut-wrenchingly powerful than many others i've seen. It happens through the performances and imagery; her first kill, the cut as she fires the gun for the last time, the timid guy who says it's his first time, the recorded phone call, her look in court and of course the stunning moment on the bed have all stuck in my mind for years.
I've found it hard to try and fully explain the appeal but a film of this extraordinary power proves you don't need budget, action, effects or any high concept stuff to make such a great film work. Every aspect of this is totally believable and adds to the character engagement, it's what films were made for. I was thinking as to why it isn't really considered a classic, and perhaps it's simply because most of it is so unpleasant - not that it's a wirth excuse. Once it's finished, you think back over the journey they have both been on, it's now stuck in my head, which is a pleasure in itself. This is what film can do at it's peak.
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