Monster (the quasi biopic of serial killer Aileen Wuornos) has taken a bit of bashing by some critics, such as those in the Slate Movie club who complained of its “tawdry, B-movie universe and stunt casting.” The film wasn’t without its limitations, but I couldn’t disagree more. Nicole Kidman as Virginia Woolf was stunt casting - you knew the whole time you were watching Kidman with a fake nose. Here, Theron disappears into her role. Also, in contradistinction to B-movie films about crime stories, here the crime becomes secondary to the character development of Wuornos and her girlfriend.
The downside of this attention to character is that the film’s explanation of serial murders is dodgy sociology at best. While thematically it seeks to disavow facile explanation (it’s not a preachy Dead Man Walking after all), the abuse-begets-violence trope certainly feeds into facile Hollywood cultural liberalism about crime (in fairness, Mystic River’s culturally conservative abuse-begets-violence trope is no less simplistic). But where its sociology of crime fails, its sociology of region, class and sexuality is unparalleled. Not since The Delta have I seen a feature film get queer life in the South so right, and the focus on the relationship between two lower-class women seems all the more radical for being in a relatively major film. And Theron really is amazing, at capturing the emotion and humanity of the character, as well giving some sense of a subproletarian view of the world. Now if only we could get that in a film not about serial murderers!
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