So yes, the two lead performances were amazing, but that doesn't always make a masterpiece, I'm afraid. To be honest, George Clooney wasn't that bad a Batman, really. Still, the film was arse.
But this here is so far from arse as to have made a round trip and ended up at the knees. Or something similarly profound.
This is a love story right here, between Ricci's Selby and Theron's Aileen. Selby has been cast out of her parent's home for a time, on account of her gettin' all arousified regarding members of her gender. She meets Aileen when the latter is five dollars away from killing herself. Wouldn't you know it, the two hook up and love blossoms.
Except when they arrange a date, Aileen, who was a prostitute, is attacked in an unbelievably brutal manner. The real Wuornos related this incident in graphic detail at her hearing, but still, seeing it presented here, onscreen, well it's just about unbearable. So Aileen kills the fella.
In a certain review written by a certain Web-Net based critic whom we shall, for the purposes of anonymity, refer to as Carrie Holes, the critic in question voiced his opinion that yes, Aileen had every right to do that, and probably saved the lives of countless others by her actions. Reading this, I couldn't help but feel this was exactly the same kind of talk that led Aileen Wuornos to execution. But that's just me, what the hell do I know? You'd be mad and probably a communist to listen to a damn word I say.
You might well cry at this here little slab of the cinema. You might well feel it's the most beautiful love-story you've saw filmed since, well, maybe since that one with Bill Murray and the hilarious Asians. This treats Wuornos with dignity, with respect, and a deep-rooted compassion.
It doesn't paint all her victims as evil men out to rape and abuse women, but suggests that Aileen has been conditioned to believe this. Similarly, it doesn't do the whole big-budget Serial Killer thing and have the film about those poor police and the trouble they're having catching this faceless mercenary. It's profoundly human, achingly sad, utterly brilliant. And it's the best debut since Aranofsky's Numbers Film.
Honest to God, it's time some shitty films were released again. I'm getting bored of liking everything.
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