Grade: B
Everyone knows girls can’t make movies. The history of cinema is overwhelmingly based on stories that flicker up on the screen all over the world straight from the perspectives of men; how unfair; blah blah blah.
Sure, there are exceptions to this rule (Buzz words: Sofia Coppola) but, relatively speaking, women who make movies that can stand alongside the big boys of cinema are few and far between.
It’s unfair, sure, given all the history they have to fend off to make their own stories heard, but the fact remains that that glass ceiling is deceptively thick and women have been ramming their emotionally-charged heads against it (and stumbling back into obscurity) for years.
That said, I didn’t like Monster. You know the movie I’m talking about. Charlize Theron as a flabby, puffy-eyed, shifty, lesbian psychopath. Director Patty Jenkin’s first feature film is based on the true story of a seriously down-on-her-luck prostitute, Aileen Wuornos, and her murderous, increasingly deranged rampage on her johns from 1989 to 1990. You may or may not remember her as the first American woman to be put to death for her crimes.
Theron is winning accolades for her astonishing transformation and whole-hearted performance and the hype is well deserved. She is startling and unrecognizable. She is dirty and fascinating.
But just because Jenkins manages to distract us from the conventional beauty of an already good actress and let her loose in a role where she can scream her lungs out, smoke like a longshoreman and swear like one too, doesn’t mean I’m cutting the director any slack. Sure, you can muss her hair up and make her strut around with a wide, unbecoming gait and a whiskey-breath accent, and believe me, it is done well; but Theron alone, unfortunately, doesn’t give the film its heart.
My contention with the film is not with its aesthetic or thematic failings, since they are not altogether failings. Certainly, Jenkins has crafted a solid accomplishment, at least as far as surface values go.
The whole film is grimy and eager to show you its true-to-life-ness. Many of the film’s key scenes were shot at the actual locations Wuornos committed her crimes.
Her derelict apartment has to fit appropriately into the life of a social castoff and it is accordingly water-stained and shabby. The thing is: everything in the film looks uncouth and speaks to a downtrodden life, but it does so uncomfortably.
Despite its earnestness, the story never really inhabits the precisely-constructed world of the film. It lacks immediacy. It wants for gritty veracity. It yells and it bleeds and it stinks, but it cannot match the intensity of Theron’s performance and thus leaves its wild main character hanging in a dead world, parched of real meaning or social commentary.
A big part of the problem may be Christina Ricci’s inability to play anyone but Christina Ricci. Normally, that’s not such an issue, but playing Wuornos’ young lover, she is placed alongside a character who is so astonishingly not Charlize Theron that the contrast is glaringly obvious and immature and no amount of teary, doe-eyed pleading on Ricci’s part is going to fix that.
I’ll go see Jenkin’s next film. And I might even like it. In fact, there were things to like about Monster. But for some reason, the film never congealed. As a first film, it is notable for the substantial accomplishment of getting big Hollywood names to dedicate themselves to such a cause and for making enough noise to stir the Golden Globe and Oscar gods from their slumber. So, kudos. Hopefully this will afford her with the financial means and industry clout to deliver a more interesting film next time around.
Monster opens Jan. 23. Check your local listings.
