In "Monster," Charlize Theron plays prostitute-turned-lesbian-turned-serial killer Aileen Wuornos, and -- well, I didn't much care for "Sweet November" either. Patty Jenkins' film follows Wuornos from her early days as a young prostitute to her period as a death-row inmate, with a lull during which Jenkins' camera decides to dolly-in on Wuornos and her new lover, Selby (Christina Ricci) as they dance to Journey's "Don't Stop Believing." While the film is never kept afloat by the affection of its director, it is damn near capsized by the campy huffing and puffing of its lead actress -- and I hesitate to use the word "campy," because the performance isn't much fun.
Charlize Theron's idea of playing a homosexual is to attempt to play Wuornos as a cross between Hilary Swank's Brandon Teena in "Boys Don't Cry" and Ellen Burstyn's Sarah Goldfarb in "Requiem for a Dream." In many ways, the South African model-turned-movie star is unworthy of her subject. In clips of the actual Wuornos from television's "Aileen: The Selling of a Serial Killer," you know that this woman was capable of reaching Burstyn's manic highs -- indeed she did, on camera, in her interviews with Nick Broomfield.
Certainly Wuornos' life was far worse than any movie, and I don't wish to make light of the many (and difficult) issues at the heart of her story. However, I would like to suggest that Charlize Theron's performance simply cannot sustain the praise being spooned down moviegoers' throats. The kind words of the critics, meant to pump up a near-vacant performance, end up doing the opposite: "Monster" has by now turned into an upmarket sick joke.
It's a movie in which the wallflower from "The Legend of Bagger Vance" appears as a modification on the Joan Crawford killer, though with her brown contacts she looks more like Sandy Dennis than ever. Critics have compared Theron's performance to that of Nicole Kidman in her Oscar winning turn in "The Hours." In fact, similarities do exist between the the two performances. However, neither performance warrants the kind of praise they receive and both dabble in easy ugliness (for Kidman, a nose suited more to Leonard Woolf than to his wife Virginia, and for Theron, myriad pockmarks and Glenda Jackson-style greasy hair).
"Monster" may be a small film -- most likely the smallest of the current Oscar contenders -- and while the production stills show off a bloated, pockmarked Theron, it's the willowy, sunny Theron we'll be seeing on Oscar night.
At times, "Monster" goes too far in its pursuit of repulsiveness: Bruce Dern shows up as Aileen's juiced mentor, but it's Theron who's playing the Bruce Dern role. In fact, there is a moment late in the film when Theron, perched on the edge of a motel coffee table, does a variation on Dern's famous "Drive, He Said" chest-thumping: this time the thumper is wearing a shirt that reads "Crazy Haze."
Early in her career, Theron appeared as the giant ape's best friend in "Mighty Joe Young," so it's only fair that the South African actressfinally had the opportunity to play her own version of the orangutan. Theron's Aileen is Mighty Joe with opposable thumbs. Early in the film, she's given a lengthy scene in front of a gas station mirror. The moment echoes everything from Hilary Swank's hair-slicking in "Boys Don't Cry" to Daryl Hannah's self-ruling striptease in "The Pope of Greenwich Village;" it's appalling (mostly) for Theron's nostril-flaring, and for her self-directed thumbs-up.
"Monster" is an untidy heap of movie. When, after the opening credits, Theron's Aileen notifies God of the recent developments of her life, you cringe at the sub-Alice Walker baldness of it all. At times, "Monster" is a white trash version of "The Color Purple," updated with homosexuality and homicide. It's as if Jenkins' script had mated Whoopi Goldberg and Oprah Winfrey.
I don't doubt that Jenkins -- who attended the director's program at the American Film Institute -- is well-schooled in film. But I do mean to suggest that she has yet to learn how to be artfully (or even reasonably) allusive. This is not the breathtaking alliance of director and star that many want it to be. If Theron wants to outdo herself, she might consider playing more Sandy Dennis roles -- she might learn how to squeal.
Atrocious and awkward in the worst way, "Monster" is an embarrassment. It's "The Fox" meets Ted Bundy meets Al Bundy. It's "High Art" without Patricia Clarkson. Whatever it is, it's a fraud.
