FEMALE DIRECTORS: Monster (2003)

“…there’s a lot of things I can’t do any more, but killing’s not one of them.”

Find us at:  iTunes  Spotify  Patreon

STRONG CW: Discussions of rape, child abuse, sexual abuse, violence against women, murder, mental illness, serial killers.

This week, we take a hard turn into true crime with a then-rising-star Charlize Theron and true blue movie star Christina Ricci. Theron donned prosthetic makeup and a dark persona to portray Aileen Wournos, a sex worker-turned-murderer whose story is complicated, tragic, and unique in true crime. Director Patty Jenkins, who went on to helm the updated Wonder Woman (2015) does an amazing job of humanizing Wournos without excusing her crimes, and Theron and Ricci dive deep into their characters’ inner lives. The result is a movie that, while messy and rough, packs a huge emotional punch that forces you to dig deeper than the headlines and ask, what actually drives a person to evil? This week, we watched 2003’s Monster.

Macintosh & Maud have  a Patreon! Any little bit you can contribute helps, and we have special contributor-only content if you donate at the $2 level, including our review of Swayze’s surfing classic with the majestic Keanu Reeves, Point Break!

You can email us with feedback at macintoshandmaud@gmail.com, or you can connect with us on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook.

If you like the podcast, make sure to subscribe and review on iTunes, Spotify, or your favorite podcatcher, and tell your friends.

Clips from Monster are © 2003 Zodiac Productions, All Rights Reserved.

Intro music taken from the Second Movement of Ludwig von Beethoven's 9th Symphony. Licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Hong Kong (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 HK) license. To hear the full performance or get more information, visit the song page at the Internet Archive.