Reviewed by EWAN McDONALD
(Herald rating * * * *)
There are only two things to say about this frightening, harrowing, bleak movie: Charlize Theron (above). The South African won every Best Actress Award from the Oscars to Oamaru for her performance as the drifter turned hooker turned serial killer turned Death Row celebrity.
In these appearance-obsessed times it must have been a terrifying ordeal for any Hollywood actress to put on 14 real (not fat-suit) kilos, add false teeth, lose her eyebrows and "ruin" her looks with skin-damage makeup. Enough irony: it is Theron's performance as Aileen Wournos that is the wonder here, especially when measured against such flubs as That Thing You Do!, Mighty Joe Young and Reindeer Games.
Wuornos, one of life's losers, is about to end it all. She decides to spend her last $5 in a bar, not realising it's a gay bar, and meets Selby (Christina Ricci). Well, you can't leave life without trying everything, thinks Wournos, and sets about earning the money to buy a hotel room for herself and her new best friend. The client rapes and batters her; Wournos kills him.
Selby and Wournos leave town and, broke, she goes back to prostitution to earn the money to support them. She begins to kill — simply because it's a more convenient way to get money. Since this is such an infamous story, it is not spoiling the plot to say that Selby finally turns Wournos in and she is sent to Death Row as "America's first female serial killer".
The DVD contains little in the way of extras — commentary from Theron and the marvellous first-time writer-director, Patty Jenkins, a shorter than usual making-of and some craft features.
DVD, video rental
Monster
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