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Monster
(2003)
Dir: Patty Jenkins
A couple of days before watching Monster on DVD, I watched portions of 1998’s Mighty Joe Young on the Spanish channel. It might be my mangled rabbit ears, but Charlize Theron looks orange in that movie. While MJY gargled a heavy monkey load, I think Theron was strategically inching her way closer and closer to an Academy Award--not through powerhouse acting, but through the gradual assimilation of Oscar’s hue. Follow the arc: 1997, in her supporting role in The Devil’s Advocate, she was quite pale, a year later, cavorting with the titanic simian, she had bronzed significantly. 2001, Sweet November, Theron retains much of the new amber hue, even thought she is playing a dying woman. In 2003, she yellowed a bit for The Italian Job, before morphing into the bloated, liver-spotted chrysalis known as “Aileen.” Theron’s got impalpable testes for packing on thirty, fatty pounds and untold strata of face-cake to become infamous serial killer, Aileen Carol Wuornos, the prostitute who murdered seven men in Florida during the 1980s--and the “monster” in question. This bold move confounded most of our tabloid-breathing nation. Why would this sleek, thoroughbred sexpot, want to play a repugnant, murderous whore? Pigmentation issues aside, her performance is amazing, but as much as the transformation was done in the name of her craft, it was also the final stage in a flushing lurch towards the Academy Award for Best Actress. Theron was buried deep in the part, and when she burst from her bloated pupa, more carroty than ever, she was a statue-seeking rocket. By Oscar night, she looked like 3-fucking-CPO in a gown. Looking at all the pictures of her later that evening, cradling her erect “mini-me,” I couldn’t help think that she must be to a tanning salon what Louie Anderson is to a Country Buffet. I admire her acting prowess, but I seriously don’t think that a more homely and curvaceous actress, like Kathy Bates, would’ve nabbed the prize had she bellied up to the role. Therefore, I must chalk the victory up to a combination of fine acting, and the public’s obsession with beauty; and clinging to it at all costs. Was the more harrowing performance the one on-screen, or the one that went on behind closed doors, as Theron toned herself back into starlet proportions. The movie itself has the tenor, and scant gravity of a Lifetime production, but I give it considerable ups for challenging it’s own title, and not portraying Wuornos as a soulless six-shooter. To Jenkins, she’s just another afflicted member of society, dealing with her shitty hand as best as she knows how; which sadly coalesces in a bunch of cock-sucking and violence. I must also award Jenkins kudos for not awarding the lead to the Meredith Baxter-Birney.
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