Monster’s Ball

In March of 2002, history was made when the Best Actress Oscar was awarded to Halle Berry for her performance in the 2001 romantic drama, Monster’s Ball. Being the first and as of today only second ever woman of color to win the award, the win has lived in infamy for what it represented, and with Denzel Washington taking home the Best Actor award for Training Day and Sidney Poitier being awarded an honorary Oscars for his career achievements, it proved to be a pretty great night for black talent. While an important moment in film history, the movie in question didn’t follow suit, with most audiences knowing very little about it outside of Berry’s win, with even the Academy only acknowledging it in Best Actress and Best Original Screenplay. After viewing the film, you’ll understand why it received some accolades, but also why it fell to the wayside.

In the state of Georgia, Hank Grotowski (played by Billy Bob Thornton) is an aging bigoted widower who works as a prison corrections officer alongside his son, Sonny (played by Heath Ledger), but continually undermines and beats him for being unable to compose himself during the execution of convicted murderer, Lawrence Musgrove (played quite ironically by Sean Combs). This outburst results in Sonny committing suicide, leaving Hank alone with his much more racist and ailing father, Buck (played by Peter Boyle). Now feeling adrift after quitting his job, Hank wanders aimlessly around town until he meets a waitress at his local diner named Leticia (played by Halle Berry), a struggling mother of an overweight son who is dealing with possibly being evicted from her home. Though initially distant from her due to his bigotry, he is forced to interact with her after her son is hit and killed in a hit-and-run, with their shared grief resulting in a sexual relationship. Things grow complicated however, when Hank learns that Leticia is the former wife of Lawrene Musgrove, putting their already tumultuous relationship (at least in the eyes of Hank’s father) in far more shaky territories, and raising the question of how the two could ever truly be together?

While Monster’s Ball was praised for its acting and not much else, that doesn’t mean the film is lacking in strong elements or is even poorly made, as it’s a soundly-structure picture all around, but through weak scripting, characterization and emotional nuance, falls flat in a lot of crucial areas.

Being conceived in the 1990s by actors-turned-writers, Milo Addica and Will Rokos, the basis of this idea was inspired by the strenuous relationship both men had with their own parents which in turn eventually spiralled into a generational story focused on the job of executioners, which would’ve been an intriguing premise for studio heads at the time as it’s positioned to be a period romantic drama featuring brewing grief, trauma, and the uncomfortable topics of racism, poverty, and prisoners on death row. Over the course of several years, many filmmakers had their interest peaked by what was developing like Robert de Niro and Oliver Stone, but it was eventually picked up by Lionsgate and producer, Lee Daniels, and was set to be released in 2001. It got a lot of big names attached including Billy Bob Thornton and Halle Berry, its box office was pretty great for such a depressing feature (earning $45 million against a measly $4 million budget), and the critical reception was fairly strong, so what was the factor that prevented it from lasting in the public perception? Outside of the common occurrence where films favored by critics and the Academy don’t always hit in the same way with the general public, this film does a good job at masking some of its more glaring issues behind solid presentation and delivery, being able to soften the blow of otherwise unimpressive elements by being decent in all the right areas.

Being directed by Marc Forster (a man with a filmography so inconsistent that you never have any idea what you’ll get from him), the film has an uncomfortable intensity to it which comes through the broken characters, unrestraint acting, and grim subject matter, yet is paired with a surprisingly chill and unassuming atmosphere which thankfully differentiates it from other Oscar-friendly stories about racism that feel the need to scream the obvious through less-than-subtle means. While the film is less forward with its intent, it doesn’t mean it never falls into similar traps. Being a film supposedly about battling racism by watching a bigoted man fall in love with a black woman after they both suffer unimaginable loss, it doesn’t fully come together thanks to the script not being all that impressive. The outline is fine and there is room to build something deep and thoughtful, but the message feels surface level and never properly felt, the characters are pretty one-dimensional and only elevated by their performances, the pacing is good, but the miniscule nature of the plot means that very little happens in the running time, and while its more grounded approach is appropriate for the topics being discussed, it can veer into the realms of feeling pretty exploitive and manipulative, concluding with an ending so confused with what it’s trying to say with a romance that never feels authentic, it seems like it didn’t know how to stop.

It’s understandable that the acting is the only thing critics continuingly praised about the film as it’s the only quality that feels truly memorable and gripping. While everything is handled fairly well without too many distracting issues, it has an energy and presentation that screams critic-pandering, and the acting does enter this realm as well in certain areas. The performances across the board are pretty great and even arguably help improve otherwise underwritten characters, but it’s hard to say that anyone is truly wow-worthy either, as they just feel like they’re playing to the best of their abilities, but never really above that. Whether this is through Forster’s relatively mundane directing style or the weak characterization, it’s more a credit to the actors than to the film itself, and the one that deserves the most praise is Halle Berry. Being an actress who has had some stumbling periods throughout her career, even her win at the Oscars was met with contention from within the black community who didn’t approve of how the first lead acting win for a black actress was for playing a part that contained a lot of what many viewed as stereotyping. It’s hard to ignore certain attributes like her poor living situation, the pronounced southern twang in her voice, and the fact that her two moods are either shrieking hysteric woman or vulnerable sex object, but the role feels like it suffers more from general poor creation rather than active harmful intent.

Leticia is a character with zero agency, constantly being at the whim of others and only reacting to what happens in the plot rather than ever feeling like she’s in control of her own situation. Whether as a victim to life or just a lustful object for Thornton’s role to redeem himself through, it’s a character that has very little going for her, and considering several actresses like Vanessa Williams and Angela Bassett turned down the part (It’s hard to imagine Bassett being docile in any role), it’s no surprise there was some hesitation. The character is only slightly saved due to Berry, who does feel perfectly authentic in this and sells the part as best she can, but it’s a shame that she won for a less-than-deserving part, and one that feels objectified at every turn (Hollywood couldn’t resist showing off her body even in a supposedly prestigious picture). Billy Bob Thornton is quite good as the character of Hank, as it’s only fitting that the man who made a truly inhuman person in Bad Santa watchable, would be the person to cast for a racist who drove his son to suicide without remorse who the audience is supposed to have sympathy for. With that said, the character isn’t incredibly well handled, with a switch in personality almost instantly once he meets Leticia (which just feels so strange given how he starts), and a romance that lacks any sense of spark outside of general lust. The rest of the cast is good as well but aren’t really given a lot to work with (although seeing P. Diddy playing an inmate does feel like poetic justice in its own right).

The look of the film really screams of the period it was created in, and usually that would be a death sentence for something created in the early 2000s (since that period is like being in media-dated hell). Despite this, the film actually works quite well with this iconography, mainly because some of these oddities actually help make it feel dissimilar from other Oscar-baity films of the era. It’s very saturated and sweaty, with muddy lighting, run-down clothing, cold environments and ragged sets that do a good job not only getting across the kind of living conditions each character is dealing with, but also the mood of every scene as well. It’ll have camera angles that feel right in the room with the actors, positioned in a way that isn’t always the cleanest or perfectly framed, but leads to some very intimidating moments which make some of the more uncomfortable scenes all the more reeling.

The lack of any music or backing track also heightens this intense mood, but unlike what would normally be anticipated, the eventual inclusion of a more cinematic score isn’t a detractor either. With a sound that feels a lot more contemporary and punky for what could easily be a sappy high-profile piece, the musical score by musical duo Asche & Spencer (as well as an uncredited Chris Beaty) has an edgy, forceful energy to it that comes through the quicker speed and prominent guitar twangs, bringing a cerebral mistiness to the picture that adds to the film’s low-key atmosphere and supposedly thoughtful identity

Monster’s Ball will forever be known as the movie that won Halle Berry an Oscar (and through that win, gave the award to a person of color for the first time in entertainment history), but for those that actually searched it out, it won’t be hard to understand why it’s barely mentioned. This strangely doesn’t come from the film’s quality as it’s perfectly well made from a directing, acting and production standpoint, it just so happens that the script doesn’t go far enough with some of its points, harming the intent behind the messaging and actively resulting in a confused and often immovable experience. It has some intense scenes, the production value is well handled, it’s directed well enough, and the performances are strong (mainly from Thornton and Berry), but with a script that has little to work with, an atmosphere that can feel pointlessly graphic and exploitative at times, and a narrative that feels a little tone-deaf without proper exploration, it’s not really a must-see. It may harbor a celebrity who became a monster, but there’s very little time to have a ball in this flick.