Monster

The role for which Charlize Theron bagged the Best Actress Oscar recently, sees the South African former model undergo a huge physical transformation, gaining over 30 pounds and sitting through hours of make-up. With grotty teeth and a freckled weather-beaten face, she's completely unrecognisable (which considering Miss Theron's usual appearance probably deserved an Oscar, too). Anyway, she plays Aileen Wuornos, a prostitute who confessed to murdering some seven men and was sent to the electric chair in 2002.

Having started selling herself at the age of 13, Wuornos has been on the game for 15 years and is contemplating suicide. Down to her last few dollars, she decides to end it after a final drink in a roadside bar. It's there, however, that she meets Selby Wall (Christina Ricci), a young lesbian just turfed out of home. As Wall is the first person in years who has shown her anything close to respect, Wuornos throws herself into an affair, hoping it'll offer her some degree of stability. But society is not quite so forgiving. After numerous knockbacks for gainful employment, Wuornos decides to go back on the game with horrendous results.

First timer Patti Jenkins' inexperience, especially with the staid, oppressive pacing of the film and her penchant towards simplistic moralising undermines the ultimate impact of Monster. Where the movie does soar, however, is with the unflinching power of Theron's performance. Sure, she's undergone a De Niro-esque makeover, but there's such a fiery intensity to the actress that it almost negates any physical alterations. While the lesbian romance angle and Ricci flit in and out of the picture, the sheer depth and raw power of Theron's work makes Monster a far more interesting film than it probably is.