What happened was that back in 2000, somebody, somewhere, saw Hilary Swank get the Best Actress for Boys Don't Cry and thought to themselves: "Hey. So that's how you win an Oscar. I can do that." This person went home to their LA apartment and wrote a screenplay with lesbian romance and extreme physical costuming and serial killing and prostitution, and that's how they created Monster.
And Charlize Theron really is good in this movie, even more because this is completely unlike anything we've Charlize we've seen before. Unfortunately I've seen most of her other movies. In The Legend of Baggar Vance her Southern accent wouldn't have convinced deaf people, in Celebration she was Kenneth Branagh's drool receptacle, and The Italian Job script had no acting in it whatsoever, by anybody. But here, in Monster, she's wearing some leperous face paint, she gets to display more physical mannerisms than a seizure, and screams, cries, and/or kills people at regular 10 minute intervals.
But the movie is completely meaningless apart from showcasing Charlize. The message of this film isn't "love conquers all" or "good things happen to
Nutritional Equivalent:
Shrimp Cocktail
bad people" or "life sucks" or "there's no hope for reconciliation between the seedy underclass and the religious upperclass." No, there's nothing to be learned here folks. Don't go see this movie, because you don't have to. I doubt any of the members of the academy will take the time to watch their screeners, but they'll still vote for Charlize when the ballots come out. Prepare yourself for an acceptance speech.
Also: Christina Ricci looks as lost as a pope in a jihad. Give it up, girl. Move to Florida, or get work on Broadway. No shame in that.
Spider
Here's one expressionist allegory for the Oedipus complex told through the eyes of a schitzophrenic sociopath that I could really sink my teeth into. I haven't felt this drawn to a murderer since I saw myself in The Minus Man. Just kidding.
Languorously set amidst the empty streets of industrial London, this is one of those Mensa test movies, where you see it and immediately feel compelled to decipher the plot into a comprehensible chronololgy. You know, like Mulholland Drive or eXistenz or Memento?
But the real reason why this movie isn't a total wash, (and much, much better than Monster) is the way in which Cronenberg so thoroughly works out film's psychology. Here, the life of a schitzophrenic killer become representative of the larger human experience. Not only is this movie a Freudian description of the parent/child sexuality relationship, but because of the way in which it was shot, the whole thing doubles as a Raeph Fiennes dream sequence. Now that's expressionism!
Nutritional Equivalent:
Sardines
But it's not Cronenberg's best work. The ending was an anti-climax for me. Or maybe I'm just saying that because, before I got around to watching the actual movie, I watched all the extra DVD footage of Cronenberg explaining himself, plus the behind the scenes documentary, plus I saw Cronenberg and Fiennes give very long interviews about this film on The Charlie Rose Show. Don't be like me. Save yourself. Throw away your TV and only watch movies in the theater.
