You might remember Aileen Wuornos (legendarily misnamed ‘the world’s first female serial killer’) – a lower-end-of-the-market prostitute with an extremely troubled background, whose loathing of males led her to kill a series of ill-starred punters in the early ’90s before the law caught up with her. She languished in Death Row for the guts of a decade before being executed in October 2002, but from beyond the grave, Wuornos – inevitably, when you consider her crimes – has now been immortalised in a full-scale feminist-avenger biopic.
Far more sympathetic to its subject than it probably has any right to be, but highly entertaining all the same, Monster teams up Charlize Theron with Christina Ricci as a pair of lovers on the run, and the former’s performance as the volcanic Wuornos has already seen her widely tipped for Oscar glory. To an extent, it’s just the kind of vanity-defying performance the Oscars have always loved to reward: Theron, previously cast as something of a blonde bubblehead, put on a stone’s weight and adopted hideous false teeth for the role. Cosmetics aside, though, it’s a stunning turn, with the South African displaying previously undreamed-of intensity as the maniacal white-trash hooker. Ricci is a reasonable side-kick as Wuornos’ teenage lesbian lover (who eventually informed on her partner), and the murder spree unfolds in pretty gripping detail.
In the manner of many ‘outlaw’ road-movies, the film is shamelessly on the side of its murderous protagonist, and never really departs from the time-honoured Badlands/Natural Born Killers template, adopting a killer’s-eye view of the events. Rather, Monster attempts to put Wuornos’ blood-lust into some sort of context by reference to her horrendous upbringing. Repeated and horrific experiences of rape and abuse had led her to a position of general ill-will to the entire male species – and as such, the status of her victims, mostly obnoxious paying customers, makes Wuornos absolutely perfect material for a classic feminist-avenger fantasy in the Thelma & Louise mode.
Accordingly, the murder scenes are filmed slowly and almost lovingly, particularly the stricken expressions on the victims’ faces as our heroine turns the tables. The truth is doubtless a good deal more complex, and Nick Broomfield’s current documentary Aileen may be a better place to look for it – but as pure drama, Monster succeeds pretty admirably. A flawed, but fascinating memorial to a truly tragic, pathetic existence.