THERON, RICCI SOLID IN KILLER'S STORY.

Byline: Bob Strauss Film Critic

YOU TRY TO leave your prejudices at the door when you go into a movie such as ``Monster.'' But it would be dishonest to pretend that they don't inform one's reaction.

A dramatized version of the oft-documented and exploited story of Aileen Wuornos, the hitchhiking prostitute who murdered a half-dozen men and was executed by the state of Florida last year, ``Monster'' pushes for understanding, if not empathy, if not downright sympathy, for the abused and troubled woman dubbed America's first female serial killer.

The blowsy, blotchy Wuornos is played by Charlize Theron, the model-perfect South African beauty. The actress put on a few dozen extra pounds and underwent hours of traditional makeup applications every day to achieve an uncanny resemblance to the real-life subject. Theron also carefully studied Wuornos' much-recorded speech patterns and other manners of self-expression. Add a keen sensitivity to the needs, demons, hair-trigger rage and doomed hopes that made this sad, neglected casualty of life tick, and Theron's performance is undoubtedly one of the best an actress has filmed this year.

However, this, like too many others before it, has not been a banner year for women in movies. And as powerful as Theron's work in ``Monster'' is, anyone who's been exposed to extended footage of the actual Wuornos - especially in Nick Broomfield's 1992 ``Aileen Wuornos: The Selling of a Serial Killer'' and the new ``Aileen: The Life and Death of a Serial Killer,'' which opens in L.A. on Jan. 9 - knows that she is demonstrably more paranoid, psychotic, intentionally funny and cunningly intelligent than she comes off as here.

There is also a whiff of an actress more accustomed to playing the monster's obsession (Theron tends to star in ``Mighty Joe Young'' remakes and other films of that ambition), rather than the creature itself, giving her all to prove what she's got. It's a formidable presentation, but the strain does show, and repetition is not always avoided.

This is especially evident during scenes involving Wuornos' lesbian lover, a somewhat fictionalized character called Selby Wall in the film. Played as an adorable but relentlessly manipulative waif by Christina Ricci (Wuornos' real companion during the time of the killings was as butch as she could be), Selby is a woman of many, seemingly effortlessly coordinated layers. You believe she has the upper hand in the relationship - although Aileen is the dominantly outgoing and proactive personality - simply by the way Ricci gets more done without busting a sweat than all of Theron's nervous exertion accomplishes.

But this is where I probably bring my past experience of Theron's movie roles to the argument - probably unfairly so, I'll be the first to admit. I'm less inclined, though, to apologize for whatever prejudice I have against murderers, however poorly represented in court or sexistly demonized by the media they may have been. But that's not the main reason I came out of ``Monster'' wondering why I should - as writer-director Patty Jenkins quite evidently wished I would - care more about Wuornos' feelings and motives than I might have going in.

Unlike ``Boys Don't Cry,'' the other low-budget, based-on-a-real-sex- and-death-outrage indie it's mainly being compared to, ``Monster'' did not show me anything unforgettably peculiar or insightful about Aileen and her relationships.

The more-objective critic in me recognizes that Jenkins, in just her first feature, has made a pretty honorable and uncompromised work of anti- Hollywood grunge art. Having corresponded with Wuornos and enjoyed access to some of her other prison writings, the filmmaker was quite evidently dedicated to showing as much of the monster's humanity as she could create.

I guess that, in the end, I just needed to see more of that than Jenkins and Theron could get on film.

Bob Strauss, [phone]

bob.strauss(at)dailynews.com

MONSTER - Three stars

(R: violence, sex, nudity, language)

Starring: Charlize Theron, Christina Ricci.

Director: Patty Jenkins.

Running time: 1 hr. 49 min.

Playing: Sunset 5, West Hollywood; Southcoast Village, Costa Mesa.

In a nutshell: Superbly acted dramatization of the life of Aileen Wuornos, the highway hooker dubbed the nation's first female serial killer.

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Photo:

Christina Ricci, left, plays the lover of serial killer Aileen Wuornos, portrayed by Charlize Theron, in ``Monster.''