SUBMITTED BY katystarlet

January 26, 2002 — Critic David Edelstein wrote the following:

In "The Movie Club" two weeks ago I was brutally disrespectful toward Monster's Ball (Lions Gate Films), and that was a mistake. After the sweetening and self-censorship in so many films, I should have recognized that the director, Marc Forster, risked much in making his protagonists (played by Billy Bob Thornton and Halle Berry) so cruel and abusive toward their children and so groggy in their repentance. I should have admitted that I don't have a clue what the movie is saying, and whether its ultimate romanticism is meant to be a) ironic; b) hopeful; or c) both at once. I suspect the answer is c, but that's a tough combination to pull off in such a draggy-realist mode and with a lead actress who's so inept at portraying emotion. Monster's Ball is full of longueurs and monosyllables and deliberate misframing, but the story is too garishly awful to qualify as a "slice of life." When a movie wrenches you with the deaths of children then leaves you with nothing to take home but your confusion, it can make you thirsty for the blood of directors.