Set in Florida, “Monster” follows Charlize Theron as Aileen Wuornos, a prostitute who begins serially killing johns, and her teenage lover, Selby Wall, played by Christina Ricci. Without giving away some of the plot development, the story is as follows: A prostitute from her early teenage years, Wuornos hits rock bottom and considers suicide, until she meets Wall, who has been sent from Ohio to Florida by oppressive and fundamentalist parents who cannot accept her homosexuality. Wall and Wournos, though separated by age and background, are attracted to each other and experience both a sexual and emotional awakening and decide to run off together. Wuornos says she will support them through prostitution, but swears off the enterprise after she kills a client in self-defense. Without prospects or money, and after a series of humiliating experiences in the mainstream, Wournos returns to prostitution, but this time begins murdering johns, which plunges her into a dizzying confusion of love, paranoia, fear, and regret.

The film is a sustained minor note, a relentlessly engaging loop of drab, stained hotel walls, rural highways, prostitution, dead-ends, failed hopes, and life entirely on the margin. Theron’s transformation and portrayal of Wuornos cannot be understated, as she swerves between moments of childlike optimism and calculated murder, continually glimpsing openings and escapes from her existence and then continually slamming them shut with her own rash and irrational reasonings and violence. The State of Florida is itself a significant character, portrayed as a primitive, lonely backwater, a never ending strip of highway and swampy sideroads and parochial suburban homogeneity, a place without culture and memory.

The viewers is drawn to Wuornos, and her human and believable struggle between the real love that she feels for Wall, which she hopes could be her salvation and purification, and the brutality, both within herself and by her clients. The viewer recoils, as the glimmer of good within Aileen is thoughtlessly trampled by the overwhelming cruelty of others. Yet vestiges of hope remain, however painfully unfulfilled. For all the darkness and pessimism, Wuornos heroically, amidst all her struggle, maintains some optimism.

This is Jenkins’ greatest achievement, in part an effort of crusading journalism: “Monster” gives life and humanity to the marginalized and stigmatized. It speaks for those who cannot speak for themselves, nameless and forgotten. The film begs for action, humanity, and understanding.

Within the film, there are weaknesses, however, but not so glaring that they in anyway overshadow Jenkins’ achievement. Some American critics have argued that the film lacks historic accuracy. It may be so, but that concern would warrant a separate discussion and forum, and cannot diminish the overall effect of the film. What the movie does come to lack is some objectivity about the murders themselves.

In the film, Wuornos becomes a figure of pity, who sees herself as a figure of shame. This idea of the villain as the victim is as old as Gissing and Dickens. But Jenkins permits little ambiguity, and never seems to accept the balance between crime and justice. The viewer is led to believe that somehow, due to circumstance, Wuornos may have been justified. She certainly has been wronged, by circumstance and a world that would rather press down on her than lift her up with dignity. But her actions have still created unjust wrongs, and they cannot be explained or exonerated in the name of vengeance and circumstance. Wuornos’ revenge is not noble, but Jenkins’ portrayal begins to blur the line between guilt and duty.

Yet, the film achieves so much, in character, possibility, and ideas, which linger, disturb and inform. Typically, the headlines will only portray societal “monsters” in two dimension. But “Monster” gives three-dimensional life to a woman who was a daughter and sister, a woman with hopes and a history and humanity. “Monster” explains that the tragedy is not only the murder, but the circumstances, even the love, that created the murderer, making the entire tragedy that much more profound and resonating.