Monster

Biography, Crime, Drama, Romance

Charlize Theron	Aileen
Christina Ricci	Selby
Bruce Dern	Thomas
Lee Tergesen	Vincent Corey
Annie Corley	Donna
Pruitt Taylor Vince	Gene/Stuttering "John"
Marco St. John	Evan/Undercover "John"
Marc Macaulay	Will/Daddy "John"
Scott Wilson	Horton/Last "John"
Rus Blackwell	Cop

Director	Patty Jenkins
Producer	Mark Damon; Donald Kushner
Writer	Patty Jenkins

Tagline: Based on a true story

Plot Outline: Based on the life of Aileen Wuornos, a Daytona Beach prostitute who became a serial killer.

Plot Synopsis: A dark tale based on the true story of Aileen Wuornos, one of America's first female serial killers. Wuornos had a difficult and cruel childhood plagued by abuse and drug use in Michigan. She became a prostitute by the age of thirteen, the same year she became pregnant. She eventually moved to Florida where she began earning a living as a highway prostitute--servicing the desires of semi-truck drivers. The tale focuses on the nine month period between 1989 and 1990, during which Wuornos had a lesbian relationship with a woman named Selby. And during that very same time, she also began murdering her clientele in order to get money without using sex. This turned the tables on a rather common phenomena of female highway prostitutes being the victims of serial killers--instead Wuornos, herself, carried out the deeds of a cold-blooded killer.

Critics have universally praised Charlize 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, The Ice Storm, Buffalo 66), 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 afterward. --Bret Fetzer