Monster

Grade: B+

This year’s “Boys Don’t Cry” – a true story that is in and of itself enormously compelling, aided by an extraordinary central performance, poorly supported by other cast members and a weak screenplay.

Charlize Theron gives this year’s “gorgeous actor who makes themselves look homely, fat, and grimy in the name of art” performance. Yet she also provides a powerhouse study into the tormented and insane mind of a serial killer, abused in her youth, forced by the need to survive into prostitution, desperate to feel normal and loved by somebody. Anybody. It is a blistering performance, and while one can’t help but wonder if the role would be receiving quite the level of acclaim it has if played by an unattractive and hefty woman rather than a starlit beauty queen layered in foam rubber, this does not detract from what is an often towering accomplishment. One can literally see the moment where the pressure builds inside this woman’s psyche and her mind snaps, and it is a rage filled with years of subjugation, groveling, and physical and emotional torture.

It is an even more amazing performance given the fact that she has virtually nothing on screen to act against. As her love interest, Christina Ricci is both miscast and wildly whiny and irritating. Her performance is virtually vacant, while all the while she is looking into the eyes of an unleashed animal caught in the jaws of an agonizing trap. Theron gives a tour-de-force performance in an acting vacuum. The screenplay doesn’t help much either, filled with awkwardly placed speeches about past abuses and voiceovers (the shortcut copout of bad screenwriting) about the meaningless lessons on hope and redemption she was taught as a teenager that led her nowhere.

This is Theron’s movie and no one else’s. To have uncovered such sympathy and rage amidst such indefensible violence and evil is both startling and imminently impressive. When she howls in frustrated agony, it is a howl rarely heard since “King Lear.”

More Movie Info: http://imdb.com/title/tt0340855/