Monster is the biggest little film of the 2003-2004 movie season. Screened in only a few cities at the end of 2003, the low-budget film is now enjoying a larger theatrical run that began in January 2004, largely due to critical praise and the anticipation that it will win at least one Academy Award come February 29. But does it deserve all the hype?

Monster tells the story of Aileen Carol Wuornos (Charlize Theron), a highway-type prostitute who killed seven men in Florida in the 1980s and was executed there in 2002. The film begins by briefly reflecting on Wuornos’s childhood, more or less to give some insight into her drift toward prostitution, but mostly centers around her short-lived affair with a woman, Selby (Christina Ricci), that took place during the period in which she killed the seven men. Wuornos was supposedly not a lesbian when she met Selby, but was down on her luck and contemplating suicide. Their chance meeting led to a relationship that seemed not so much about love as about desperately needing someone. No explanation is given of why Selby would be interested in Wuornos. Aileen, an outcast and loner for most of her life, seems smitten for no other reason than that Selby seems to care for her.

The Chicago Sun-Times’ Roger Ebert said that he watched all of Monster and never had a clue who the actress was who was playing Wuornos. Had I not had the luxury of knowing beforehand that it was Charlize Theron in the lead role, I can only guess that I wouldn’t have been able to figure it out either.

With the addition of a wonderful makeup job and a generous amount of weight to her near-perfect form, Theron is completely unrecognizable. Her performance, though, is a transformation that is more than merely physical. Theron so inhabits the role of Wuornos that it didn’t seem as if I was watching a film about her; I felt as if I was watching her. About a third of the way through Monster, I had all but forgotten it was Theron onscreen; I was lost in her performance, and the story kept me gripped until the end. Monster may not be the very best film of 2003, but it is a very good one. Theron’s performance, however, is the best I’ve seen in many years.

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