From the very beginning, "Monster" was very low-key in its preparation, comncent, filming, and wrapping up. The outside world had no idea that in addition to "The Matrix" and "The Lord of the Rings," Adrian had another movie this year.
This situation continued until late October, after Erin Wuornos’s death sentence was officially carried out. Only when so dia revisited the case did Adrian let it slip: Hollywood had intentions to adapt this case into a film. This news imdiately sparked discussion in certain circles. You must understand that although many states in the United States have not abolished the death penalty, carrying it out is exceedingly difficult. Wuornos was the pri example, caught as early as ’91 but dragged out until this year for execution, even with irrefutable evidence proving she killed those six or seven victims.
Whether this was due to the death penalty needing cautious consideration, delaying profiting lawyers, or sothing else, everyone had their opinion, which I won’t go into here. However, so human rights organizations advocating the abolishnt of the death penalty never gave up. As soon as the rumors spread, they wrote articles about it, claiming that even Hollywood was beginning to sympathize with Wuornos and that there was no need to rush the execution.
This led the prosecution to beco very unhappy and retaliate through their own dia channels. The police officer who cracked the case even bluntly told reporters: "I know Hollywood wants to package her as a pitiable person, but the indisputable fact that she killed eight people remains, Erin Wuornos is a cold-blooded demon!"
Of course, the scope of this argunt wasn’t wide. After all, it was a case from ten years ago, not as high-profile as soone like Simpson, so it didn’t cause much of a stir. Then, by the end of November, "Monster" started its promotion before Thanksgiving, with the first gimmick being Gwyneth playing the ugly part of Erin Wuornos.
With the montum built by movies like "Titanic," "Shakespeare in Love," "Sense and Sensibility," and "A Beautiful Mind," Gwyneth’s popularity now far surpassed what it was at this point in her previous life. Moreover, last year she had the loudest buzz for the Oscar for Best Actress but ultimately lost to Nicole, garnering much sympathy. To this day, fans still claim through various channels that she should have been the 74th Oscar’s leading actress. One could imagine how many eyeballs would be attracted to such an actress playing the recently executed serial killer on the highways, Erin Wuornos!
However, even so, the response remained limited in scope, with minimal promotional efforts and no trailers released; comnting on it required waiting for more concrete details to erge. Interestingly, as more news about "Monster" released, those who were initially watching began to quiet down, even when news of Gwyneth intentionally gaining weight and undergoing an ugly transformation was confird by subsequent trailers, everyone maintained their silence. Then, their speculations were confird—this movie was indeed directed and produced by Adrian Cowell, the Miracle Director.
Had Adrian been just a director, even one with great fa, it wouldn’t have been much of an issue. But he was also the chairman of the board for AC dia; that made a difference. Despite Adrian always cultivating an image that when he is directing, he is just a director, so attributes once attributed to him can’t be completely ignored, like opponents of the death penalty deliberately conveying a dia mogul sympathizing with Wuornos’s plight.
Of course, it was just sympathy for Wuornos, nothing about opposing the death penalty or similar sentints, otherwise, if Adrian ca forward to deny it, it would be rather embarrassing for them, and they might even face lawsuits. Although these people always like to think they hold the truth, not all of them lack brains. Offending a dia conglorate’s boss is undoubtedly foolish.
Besides, how others interpret it is their business.
Indeed that was the case. After the news that Adrian was directing Erin Wuornos’s biographical film was confird, and so film critics praised Gwyneth’s performance after attending the previews, for instance—
"Gwyneth Paltrow portrayed a woman from the lower echelons of society who walks step by step towards destruction so flawlessly in this film that I couldn’t at all connect her performance with any of her past roles," wrote Ronnie Fan, one of the well-known film critics, in his article. "I heard Gwyneth gained 20 pounds for the movie and even shaved off her own eyebrows, physically and ntally getting closer to portraying Erin Wuornos. Her imnse courage and dedication deserve everyone’s acknowledgnt."
Rebecca Lewis, also a renowned film critic, analyzed the film from a feminine perspective, "Beneath the notorious veneer of the serial killer, is there a crying, shattered heart hidden away? There’s no doubt that the life of Erin Wuornos was very unfortunate. Her childhood was nothing but beatings, humiliation, and abuse. She might have had beautiful dreams, but they shattered quickly under the rciless blows of reality, forcing her to sell her body starting in her teens, eventually becoming a prostitute on the highway.
In that dark, rainy night, she sought death but found unprecedented comfort from Hillby, her sa-sex companion. Maybe she wasn’t a lesbian; perhaps all she needed was to be loved and needed, and so she clung to this lifeline. But when she, a woman without any special skills, tried to reintegrate into society, the harsh reality shut its doors to her, compelling her to return to her old trade, until she encountered a sadist and unleashed the beast within. That’s when her spree of serial killings began.
The Miracle Director with his dark tone and precise attention to detail painted the film and the character’s inner world vividly, and Gwyneth’s interpretation of the character covered all bases. As for Anne Hathaway, who is still a newcor in the film industry, although her image has undergone an earth-shattering change from the innocence and naïveté of ’The Princess Diaries,’ she was completely overshadowed. However, overall, she perford quite well.
This may not be Adrian’s best work, but it certainly is his heaviest. Thankfully, in the end, he still offers the audience a glimr of hope, wishing every cloud really does have its own sky."
Lewis’s review was rather delicate and to so extent also triggered a strong response from so people. However, most interestingly, Ronnie Fan and Rebecca Lewis, who often hold opposing views on movies, both attended the preview of the sa film together and unanimously praised it, surprising many.
Though "Monster" was low-key and did not invite many critics to its preview, Adrian’s own reputation guaranteed that those who did attend were quite renowned. Therefore, for a low-budget, arts-oriented film, the publicity effect was quite positive, providing an opportunity for so to exploit.
For a director who is also a dia mogul, creating a film that sympathizes with Erin Wuornos naturally t with substantial dissatisfaction from police officers and prosecutors. Was this another case like the Norfolk Four, where the evidence was irrefutable, the process clear, and the defendant had admitted guilt? The main issue lay in Wuornos’s insistence that she killed in self-defense after being brutally assaulted while providing sexual services, in an attempt to avoid the death penalty.
What kind of bullshit was this? Among the victims were young boys, elderly n living at ho, and even an undercover cop. Why shouldn’t this cold-blooded killer be sentenced to death?! So when so people stood up, the governnt reacted promptly with rebuttals and expressed regret and disappointnt at Adrian’s action.
"Without a doubt, Adrian Cowell is a great director, philanthropist, and patriot. But his actions this ti are sowhat inappropriate. We sincerely hope he would have understood the specific details of the whole case more thoroughly before making this film instead of believing one-sided stories," said the police spokesperson to reporters.
They’re not fools. No matter how dissatisfied they were, directly criticizing the boss of a dia conglorate and a famous Hollywood director was unwise—it’s just a film, after all. But they could use this opportunity to further solidify their stance and build up their own image, thereby gaining more support.
However, although the two sides restrained themselves, entertainnt reporters didn’t care about this. Since the story had already been reported by other dia and had caused so much controversy, why would Mr. Adrian Cowell have any reason to stop them from following up? Consequently, they all tried to dig sothing out of him, and for the first ti, the Miracle Director found himself caught up in the controversy because of his status as the owner of a dia conglorate.
Though the situation was unexpected, Adrian didn’t respond imdiately, but waited several days to observe the situation before he finally addressed the issue in front of the reporters.
"The film was completed in the first half of the year, but I held off on promoting it until after October. I didn’t want the film to affect public perception. Everyone must pay the price for their wrongdoings, especially since Erin Wuornos brutally took several people’s lives. Of course, how much leeway we give is a question for the law, and we can’t let our personal likes and dislikes influence the law. Therefore, I didn’t make this film to evoke sympathy for anyone, but to uncover the root of the problem. Those innocent people were indeed victims, but wasn’t Wuornos a victim as well? If we only skim the surface without delving deeper to find the true cause of the problem, without finding a way to solve discrimination and help those who need it, then Erin Wuornos won’t be the only case."
That was Adrian’s statent, and beyond that, he also announced that all proceeds from the film would be donated to charity, and he would additionally allocate money to help those at the bottom, who are yearning to change their lives and truly need aid. It was a very tactful statent that offended neither side of the controversy. He neither gave an opinion on the execution of Wuornos nor overtly expressed sympathy, but also stirred the emotions of the readers and managed a perfect promotion for his film.
The effect was quite good, and Adrian’s reputation as a philanthropist grew even louder. Although so subtly pointed out that his statent had an opportunistic nature, they didn’t dwell on it. Don’t forget, he is a dia tycoon, and if he needs, he can gather many people to cheer for him. Naturally, he still satisfied your curiosity, publicly stated his own opinion, and allowed you to interpret it—just don’t oversimplify and take things out of context—and then don’t bother !
Subsequently, interest in the film grew, and when "Monster" was released in mid-December, despite being shown in only 20 theaters, it brought in over $300,000 during its opening weekend. For a film of the arthouse genre, that was quite an accomplishnt.
Similarly, the film reviews were mostly positive. Adrian naturally didn’t just copy the original when making the film, but added many details. For example, a small charm that Wuornos carried with her from childhood represented her yearning for dreams. She always wore it until she fought back against a sadist and killed him. Shaking, she drove away and, while escaping with Hillby, glanced at the charm and then threw it into a trashcan, signifying her complete fall into a nightmare—after all, this was a movie, not a docuntary.
These details added much color to the film. Having made films for nearly a decade, Adrian—despite being an imitator—had accumulated unparalleled experience in editing. Paired with Gwyneth Paltrow’s all-out performance—almost everyone admitted they couldn’t connect the crude, cursing woman on screen with the elegant Gwyneth Paltrow. In a burst of skill, she brought her acting to its full potential.
For instance, after becoming a cold-blooded serial killer, Wuornos pretended to be a prostitute on the streets, hitching rides, then lured her victims into deep woods without rcy to kill them. After she had killed several, she encountered a gentle old man who didn’t ask for anything but wanted to help her. Realizing sothing was wrong and then pleading for his life, promising not to call the police, he even showed her a picture of his wife.
After trembling for a while, Wuornos finally pulled the trigger. Afterwards, she returned to the car, sat in the driver’s seat, eyes wide open, teeth chattering, displaying a sense of utter despair that was both clear and poignant. Many film critics called this scene the most morable mont of the entire film.
"It’s a despair that one cannot look directly at; Gwyneth’s performance is deeply moving," wrote Roger Ebert in his review.
Gwyneth’s exceptional performance inevitably made Anne seem a bit less dazzling. It wasn’t that her acting was bad; in Adrian’s opinion, it lacked the selfishness of the original performance that only focused on showcasing herself. Regardless, Anne was still a newcor, with her most famous work being "The Princess Diaries," and that too in a very innocent image. Such a drastic change was bound to be t with resistance, especially when Gwyneth was performing so outstandingly, so...
"In fact, you don’t need to worry, you did quite well, Anne," Adrian comforted her, "after all, most film fans got to know you through ’The Princess Diaries,’ and it will take ti for them to accept your transformation."
"I know," Anne Hathaway, sitting on his lap, smiled obediently, "it’s just that Universal has to worry now."
Adrian couldn’t help but laugh wryly. After "Monster" was released, Ron yer complained to him more than once. Due to the respectable box office of "The Princess Diaries," Universal had planned to make a sequel. But with the release of "Monster," Anne’s image drastically changed; she had cut short and straightened her hair, was constantly pale-faced, and the makeup was deliberately unattractive—a stark contrast to the pretty appearance in "The Princess Diaries," which led to protests from many fans. Moreover, she played a lesbian lover of a female serial killer, which made it problematic to return to playing Princess Mia.
Yet it was Adrian who had decided to cast her in this role, and yer could only express his frustration.
"To be honest, Anne, a 180-degree turn isn’t necessarily a good thing, but I still had you play this role, do you know why?" Adrian pinched her chin, "I believe you have the determination and the ability to portray this character well and to successfully complete your image transformation."
"Thank you, Ed," Anne said, lifting the corners of her mouth, revealing a hint of allure amidst her delicate features, and then leaned in to give him a sweet kiss.
Although this gesture pleased Adrian, he still couldn’t help but sigh inwardly. The sowhat rude insinuations from the past had left so aftereffects; Anne had been very compliant since then, but there was always a slight barrier between them. However, it didn’t matter, for once Gwyneth successfully claid the top spot either this year or next, she should understand what best to do for herself.
Basically, it was already clear to most people that Gwyneth had locked in the Oscar for Best Actress for the next year. From 1998 to now, every female star that starred in a movie directed personally by Adrian had won the Oscar for Best Actress—why would Gwyneth be an exception? She certainly t all the conditions necessary for an Oscar-winning actress: the role was based on a real person, a murderer, who also put on weight and uglified herself, and most people agreed that her performance was impeccable.
Moreover, she had been nominated several tis in a row already, each ti just missing out on the win. Last year she had the most probable chance to win Best Actress but lost it to Nicole with Adrian’s support. Adrian was directing a movie this year that was not particularly high quality but would have her as the female lead—this could be seen as a form of compensation.
Even if the Film Academy had to consider public pressure, such as whether the Oscar-winning actress was bought by Adrian’s money, the pressure from Gwyneth was much greater. There were even unsubstantiated rumors that Gwyneth had said one of her biggest regrets was not having made more effort to let her recently deceased father see her win the coveted Oscar for Best Actress. Under such circumstances, could the Film Academy possibly choose soone else? (To be continued. If you like this work, you are welco to vote for it on Qidian with recomndation tickets or monthly tickets. Your support is my biggest motivation.)
Reviews
All reviews (0)