Review of Monster's Ball (2001) by Scott S — 02 Jun 2013

This is unlike any other performance by Halle Berry I have ever seen before. It's raw, it's beautiful, and it's real.

Monster's Ball takes place in the "deep south" part of Georgia and is about Hank (Billy Bob Thornton), a racist former corrections officer, who meets the African American widow, Leticia played by Halle Berry, of the latest man he executed and this story shows and tells us of how they meet and how they eventually fall in love, despite Hank's former opinions.

This is a fantastically told story of how people are capable of changing for the better and for the people you love. This film has an amazing story full of love, connections, and profoundness.

(SPOILER) The ending may have been both, at first, confusing but also lovely and romantic. Leticia finds the portrait that her late husband, Lawrence, drew of Hank just before Lawrence was executed. Leticia figures out for herself that the man she loves is the man who helped kill her late husband (for the record, Leticia didn't really love Lawrence, he was mainly a baby daddy). Hank then arrives home after buying some late night ice cream. The audience thinks that she will yell at him and be mad, but she goes along with it as if she never saw it.

This really shows how much she loved Hank because she is willing to look past her past struggles that she has been fighting to free herself from. She is willing to look past Hank's past because she knows what kind of man he is after he changed. Hank's father kept scolding him for being weak and like his mother, and this was Hank's struggle he was trying to free himself from, his racist no good father (who he put in a nursing home for Leticia's sake).

During the big love scene between Hank and Leticia, there were images of hands trying to capture a small bird out of a cage. This, I believe, is meant to symbolize if not both Hank and Leticia, only Leticia and how she is the bird and she is attempting her break away from her struggling situation which was trying to pay rent, trying to find a working car, trying to get over her son's sudden death, and trying to find some well needed and deserved support, financially, mentally, and physically, hence the two of them having sexual relations.

Hank's struggles were getting over his son's recent suicide (which he feels he cause due to Hank's admitted hatred towards his son), his recent resignation from his long time career at the corrections office, and trying to get his father off his back about he's weak, but most of his struggles, as said before, is his son's death.

When I think about it, I feel the sexual scenes are very much necessary, it shows how Hank and his son would have random sex with prostitutes to feed their hunger. His son ended up killing himself, but Hank changed, for him and his son, by finding Leticia and bringing her in his life.

This film is a spectacular achievement and even though I have yet to see Moulin Rouge with nominated Nicole Kidman, I believe Halle Berry's award is well deserved.

Overall, I am very happy that I saw this movie and I have a greater love for Halle Berry and Billy Bob Thornton.

Monster's Ball, I give you a 100%.