Review: Monster

So, yeah, this didn't exactly come on Movie Monday, but Monday I came home from work and fell asleep pretty quickly. I'm out in the sun a lot for my job, and with summer starting to hit us full force here in the desert, it was a LOT of sun I was out in all afternoon (2 1/2 hrs in the sun teaching lessons - like I said, a LOT of sun). So, I came home exhausted. Like Mom always laughed, the source of solar power is people - the sun just sucks all the energy right out of you!

Anyway, now that I'm coherent after work again, it's time for another movie. Moving along on our list, we have Monster next.

"Based on a true story," a "biopic," whatever you want to call it - This is the story of Aileen Wournos, crazy hooker\serial killer in FL in the late 1980s. Realized she could get more money and do less work by killing the johns she picked up along the highway.

Weird movie. One of those ones that takes an interesting, yet completely unsympathetic character, and tells the story in a way that you almost understand them. There's a lot of the common threads of humanity running through - searching for love, acceptance, etc. Granted we don't all go out and start killing people, but we can relate a little at least to what the characters talk about - the motives driving them, if not the actual actions.

As for the acting... Charlize Theron definitely deserved her Oscar for this one. At least in my humble opinion! A wonderful mixture of confusion and desperation and bravado, right through. Very well done. (And a side note - make-up was great! Anyone who can make a person as glamorous as Charlize Theron become as outright ugly as Aileen Wournos deserves recognition too!) Christina Ricci was great as Selby, Wournos' lover - a very self-centered, self-serving little person. An interesting side note is the difference people can make in our lives - what path we choose based on who we meet at any given juncture, I mean. In this case, Wournos was portrayed at the end of her rope, contemplating suicide, until she met Selby. And meeting Selby led to her hooking more, and eventually killing more.

Overall: 4 of 5. Not one I'd want for my own shelf, but definitely worth the watching - interesting character, and wonderful performance from Theron. Worth your time.