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Reviewer: Pete Luisi-Mills
Monster's Ball is a film composed of awkward conversations, ambiguous silences and unspoken feelings, punctuated by moments of physical and emotional violence. It is a movie about a black woman and a white man who enter into a desperate sexual and (definitely on his side, possibly on hers) romantic relationship. Monster's Ball is not, however, a film about interracial relationships – it is about two emotionally shattered people who are attracted to each other for different reasons, some obvious, some mysterious. Hank (Billy Bob Thornton) is a guard on death row at a Georgia state penitentiary. He lives with his sad, brooding son Sonny (Heath Ledger), and his virulently racist father Buck (Peter Boyle). These men represent three generations who have worked with the Georgia prison system; they also represent a legacy of racial hatred, progressively more diluted as it moves down the family tree. Buck is the emphysemic patriarch, with an iron psychological grip on the family. Buck's a nasty piece of work who sits at the breakfast table glowering over his oatmeal at the black children who walk across his lawn. "Next thing you know they'll be coming into this house, sitting on my couch and watching my TV," he says. At one point Hank shoots off a shotgun into the air to scare the children away. When he is confronted by the children's father, we sense embarrassment and shame behind Hank's cold, flinty eyes. Buck is a racist because he hates black people; Hank is a racist because his father wants him to be, and he has never considered that his father might be wrong. Sonny (Heath Ledger) is disturbed by his family's racism, but he's so desperate for Hank's approval he never stands up to him. Leticia (Halle Berry) is a 30-ish young woman trying to raise her son on a waitress' salary. Her life is a mess. She drinks too much. She is about to be evicted from her house. She takes out her frustrations on her son, verbally abusing him one minute (she refers to her overweight son as a "fat little piggy"), smothering him with love the next. Her husband Lawrence (Sean "Puffy" Combs, in a surprisingly strong performance) is about to be executed for murder, which Leticia accepts with frank and unsentimental relief. Leticia is tired – she has been visiting Lawrence in prison for eleven years. When she visits Lawrence for the last time, she makes it quite clear that she is there only so he can say goodbye to their son. For Lawrence's part, he has no illusions about himself – he matter-of-factly tells his tearful son, "You're not like me. I'm a bad man." Hank and Leticia both suffer sudden, violent loss. Both moments come as cold slaps to the audience – indeed, Monster's Ball contains the most shocking moment of sudden violence since Kevin Spacey was shot in L.A. Confidential. These moments aren't there arbitrarily, however. Hank and Leticia's unspectacular lives are changed in a moment, without warning, by horrible tragedy...just like in real life. We experience the tragedy with them, without the aid of foreshadowing or the buffering device of a dramatic musical score. These experiences are the skeleton upon which Hank and Leticia drape a tentative, wary, and above all quiet, relationship. I mentioned at the beginning of this review that Monster's Ball is not about interracial romance. That's not to say Monster's Ball ignores the racial realities of Hank and Leticia's world. Their grief supersedes their cultural and ethnic differences. At the same time, race is an ever-present, though rarely acknowledged reality; it hangs around the film like an unwelcome party guest, always ready to make it's presence known, always threatening to upset the fragile relationship Hank and Leticia are trying to create. There is a scene where Leticia goes to Hank's house to give him a cowboy hat as a gift, only to find Buck instead. Buck's cruel racism comes as an ice water shock to Leticia, and Hank is forced to take extreme measures. Hank, of course, is the guard who supervises the execution of Lawrence, a fact unknown to Leticia when they meet. For his part, Hank doesn't realize his connection to Leticia at first. But when Leticia tearfully relates her story after too much whiskey, Hank isn't forthcoming. Why? Because he is attracted to Leticia, and lonely, and doesn't want to blow a chance at romance? Because there has been enough pain in both their lives without adding more? Does Hank want to save Leticia? Does he want Leticia to save him? Is this about love, pity, redemption, or sex? Is Hank noble, misguided, cruel, or just horny? Is Leticia lonely, foolish, practical, or just tired? This is the great strength of Monster's Ball: it doesn't spoon-feed us any answers. The viewer is a silent witness to Hank and Leticia's relationship, privy to much information yet completely unacknowledged by the screenplay. Unlike typical films in which unnecessary and unrealistic conversations take place only in order to enlighten the audience to the characters' motives, Monster's Ball never hits a false note. In real life, motives of the heart are usually kept secret, and this rule is respected in the film. The powerful final scenes of Monster's Ball are ambiguous and almost totally void of dialogue. Leticia makes an important discovery about Hank, and we hold our breath as we prepare for a confrontation. The final shots of Hank and Leticia sharing a bowl of chocolate ice cream leave us with more questions than answers. Leticia's character has been criticized by some as an unsavory portrayal of a helpless black woman in need of rescuing by a white man (in one particularly noisome review, Berry's Oscar win was equated with Hattie McDaniel's for Gone With the Wind). I believe this is unfair: Leticia rescues Hank to the same degree that she herself is rescued. That Berry more than deserved the Oscar is beyond argument. All of the other performances in Monster's Ball are amazing, including Thornton's brooding Hank, Boyle's malevolent Buck, Heath Ledger as the lonely, rather pathetic Sonny (a surprise, coming from the teen heartthrob of A Knight's Tale), and rapper Mos Def in a small role as a protective local dad. The relationships between Buck, Hank and Sonny are an excellent example of generational sin (we see the destructive effects on Hank and Sonny, as well as Hank struggling to confront the sin in his own life by confronting his father). Although this is not the main theme of the film, it is most clearly and concisely demonstrated: a few very short scenes edited together could provoke a good discussion of the effects of generational sin, particularly the sin of racism. Monster's Ball also does a good job of illustrating the desperation of the human heart in times of crisis, and how people deal with loss. Monster's Ball was scheduled for release on video and DVD June 11, 2002.
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