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“Monster’s Ball” follows a black woman and a white man who, for a time at least, take comfort in each other’s pain. Their pain is still different and so are they. This isn’t a message movie about interracial relationships, but of two people who desperately try to cope with violent deaths that shake their lives, and find solace in each other in the days that follow. The film has the emotional depth of great fiction and makes great demands of us in terms of our compassion as we seek to understand the choices that have been made, particularly the decision to omit an expected scene. It makes a conventional ending and decides that all we need is a line.
Billy Bob Thornton and Halle Berry play Hank and Leticia, two deeply human characters who, to our surprise, are not enveloped in racial stereotypes. When was the last time we saw two people completely untethered to political correctness, who are utterly flawed and complex, yet have the courage to love? The pair reside in a Georgia town around the 1990s. Leticia is a single mother who’s ex-husband is on Death Row while Hank, who is the guard at Death Row, has to deal with a bunch of sociopathic family members. Hank is set to execute Leticia’s ex-husband, which makes his job even more complicated. (“Monster’s Ball” is an old English term for a condemned man’s last night on earth.) They share a common bond without even knowing it. Let’s not forget, this is enough plot for an entire movie. We can picture how each character comes to this shocking revelation.
The filmmakers have adeptly split the burden of disclosure in a way which capably portrays their entire existence, as well as what either of the characters wish to accomplish. The characters’ internal struggles or lack there of is a cinematic blessing that truly captures who they are, what they need, what has to be done, and the decision they are able to make.
Milo Addict and Will Rooks’ screenplay is full of nuance and keenly alert. It conjures memories of short stories from writers such as Andre Dubos or William Trevor and even Eudora Welty or Raymond Carver. The screenplay explicitly does not narrate “their” story, but rather attempts to tell two distinct stories in tandem. All characters are treated as equally important with each of them having their own separate storylines that do not overlap, but eventually, inexorably blend into one another. The narrative contains elements of racism, as Hank’s father Buck (Peter Boyle) is introduced as a downright vile racist something which Hank takes after. But the point of the film is not redemption, not how Hank transforms, but rather how his deeper feelings render his attitude so much more urgent causing empathy to mask his more anger inducing sentiments. So the film is about not so much overcoming bigotry, but instead casting it aside for absolutely stunning reasons.
Hank is an abused child as well as an abusive father. His old man Buck who is unable to walk and bound to a wheelchair still shows more than an iron grip on the family. All three generations live under his roof, and when Hank’s son Sonny (Heath Ledger) tries to ‘opt out’ of the family sickness, Buck’s verdict is Parsimonious: “He was weak.” We don’t know much of Leticia’s parents, but as for her, she is a terrible mother mostly because she dominates over her son Tyrell (Coronji Calhoun) with love, but also screams and calls him a “fat little piggy.” She drinks excessively, is on the verge of getting evicted, and considers herself a failure. She certainly has no love for Tyrell’s father Lawrence (Sean Combs) who is on death row and makes it obvious during a visitation that she is only there for her son. There’s no side story to justify Lawrence being a victim: “I’m a bad man,” he tells Tyrell. “You’re the best of me.” Leticia is all messed up. In a school shooting of sorts that rips apart her she has sustained a loss, coincidentally Hank is there at the time she needs service and this is what makes them to be able to see each other.
If we’re talking about human necessities, it seems that no one exists for them in the neighborhood. Hank moves so slowly in his courtship, it feels as though he is sleepwalking towards her. He is so resigned that helplessness appears to be her only option. There is a crucial conversation in which the two characters have their bodies turned in opposite directions, as if they’re too afraid to be any closer. And consider another conversation, she’s somewhat tipsy, is waving her arms and one of her hands keeps landing on Hank’s thigh. It’s like she’s oblivious, and what’s crucial is that he does not want to be.
Their tender moments are so basic and mundane, which is in stark contrast with Hank’s detached business arrangement with the local prostitute. The only negative in the film is how Marc Forster keeps his camera fixed on Berry’s almost unclothed body for too long this is not a story about the body, and if she is captured that way, then we are absolutely convinced Hank doesn’t. Rather, what he does, and what she does, is not characterized by lust but by necessity.
Students of screenwriting should consider how the film deals with crucial passages towards the end, for instance, when she finds a set of drawings and starts identifying their meanings. This is where a lesser film would have inserted some form of goal-oriented conflict. Leticia never addresses Hank about the drawings. Why? Is it to accept and move on? Does she understand the reasoning behind his information withholding? Does she have no choice? Does she have the feeling that the drawings would only exist if the artist held affection towards his subject? Does she feel fatigued and this is simply another form of the cross? Does she actually forgive? What? The film can’t articulate. The characters have vanished into the enigmas of the soul. To resolve all the enigmas “Monster’s Ball” contains would require the film to limit itself to explaining able enigmas. For me, when Leticia reunited with Hank in the last frame of the film, I thought of her just as intensely and considerately as any character I know of in a motion picture.
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