DIRECTED BY Patty Jenkins

STARRING Charlize Theron, Christina Ricci

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Opens April 2, Cert 15, 109 mins

Apparently, this writer wasn’t the only one who spent the first few minutes of Monster wondering when Charlize Theron was going to make an appearance on screen. Her physical transformation into the role of Aileen Wuornos, serial killer in the making, must be the most drastic since De Niro’s bloated gross-out in Raging Bull. With disfiguring dentures, 30 pounds of flab and a complexion like decaying gorgonzola, there isn’t a trace of the glamorous, blonde Charlize we’ve come to know and not take much notice of. Theron’s track record hasn’t suggested bold artistic ambition, but as the Oscar voters recognised, there’s a desperate intensity about her performance here that hints at a giant hinterland waiting to be discovered.

Wuornos, a homeless prostitute, was convicted in 1992 for killing six men, and had become a national cause c