Rating: 43 out of 50
Story 9/10, Talent 10/10, Video 8/10, Audio 8/10, Special Features 8/10

With the 2003 release of her first feature film Monster, Writer/Director Patty Jenkins scored a smashing critical and commercial success. The film starred Charlize Theron, who won the Best Actress Oscar for her portrayal of serial killer Aileen Wuornos, and Christina Ricci in a supporting role as her lover. Now comes the much-anticipated Columbia Tristar Home Entertainment DVD two-disc Special Edition complete with features missing from the initial DVD release. Monster fans will be delighted with this presentation of the film that Roger Ebert chose as the number one movie of 2003.

Story (9)

The movie is loosely based on events in the life of prostitute Aileen "Lee" Wuornos who is believed to have killed seven men in Florida in the late eighties. After a series of narrated flashbacks that sketch in the backstory (voiceovers are used throughout the film for the same purpose), the movie begins with a despondent Lee (Theron) sitting under a thruway overpass contemplating suicide but instead deciding to use her last five dollars to patronize a local watering hole. However, she has stumbled into a gay bar and unaware of her surroundings, she sits down for a drink. There she meets Selby Wall (Ricci) a beautiful but naive young out-of-towner keen on learning the gay lifestyle.

After an uncomfortable introduction, the two spend the night drinking and partying. When the bar closes Selby invites her new friend to her interim home for a plutonic overnight stay and the homeless Lee gladly accepts. The next day, Selby invites Lee to a skating rink where a mutual attraction develops into some heavy petting and the girls make plans to consummate the relationship the following night. But while trying to earn money for a motel by her usual "tricking" Lee is tied up, tortured and raped by the brutal Vincent Corey (Lee Tergesen). She is however, able to free herself and (using a handgun she keeps in her purse) kills Corey in a fit of justifiable rage.

Meanwhile, Selby gives up waiting for Lee and goes home to bed. Lee cleans herself up and mends her wounds while helping herself to Corey's car, money and even his work overalls and hat. She awakens Selby (who is set to leave town) and making no mention of the murder, convinces her to move into a motel where the two can party and get to know one another. Things go well initially for the pair and Lee has an epiphany, deciding to give up "hooking" in pursuit of a normal life with Selby. However, her hopes are dashed when, predictably, no one is willing to give a prostitute with little work experience a job.

Lee knows that in order to keep Selby and make a living she must return to being a prostitute. However, she soon realizes that she is emotionally and physically unable to do so and embarks on a string of murder/robberies to hold things together. In the process she evolves from being a person who commits one arguably justifiable homicide to someone who kills an innocent man to suit her own purposes.

Next: Talent

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