Monster’s Ball (2001) – Nostalgia Central

Hank Grotowski (Billy Bob Thornton) is an old-school racist. Whether he looks at black people the way he does because of his job –  he heads the “death team” in a rural Georgia penitentiary – or vice versa is unclear, and perhaps unimportant.

But Hank clearly shares such a hateful worldview with his father Buck (Peter Boyle) – a bitter, homebound man who looks out the window and spouts epithets – and he means to pass it down to his own offspring Sonny (Heath Ledger).

The three share a loveless home, they share a profession (Sonny works alongside his father in the prison, and Buck is retired from it), so it seems only appropriate that they share a fear of African-Americans as well, for fear is what their perspective is ultimately revealed to be governed by.

But the world is changing around the Grotowskis, even in rural Georgia, and Hank is destined to bear the brunt of it.

A personal tragedy, which explodes on the screen in a truly sudden manner, forces Hank to reevaluate his life, and when purely coincidental circumstances cast a vulnerable black woman in his path, he finds himself questioning the views that have governed his life.

Redemption is an easy theme for film to embrace, especially when the position for which one must seek amends is as repugnant as this. But Monster’s Ball handles it with such understated elegance that the film lingers in the
mind.

Monster’s Ball also has a truly intriguing cast. Billy Bob Thornton, a native of Hot Springs, Arkansas, returns to his geographic roots as Hank.

The actor once again resorts to his now-trademark reticence, but it’s a demeanour that suits the character. It becomes Thornton’s responsibility to keep this picture grounded, and he does so effortlessly.

Peter Boyle and Heath Ledger are interesting choices to play Hank’s father and son. respectively. It’s a shock to see Boyle, currently a familiar face on the mild TV sitcom Everybody Loves Raymond, portray a seething racist, and the young Ledger exudes a potential that we didn’t see in him in last spring’s dopey A Knight’s Tale!

Leticia Musgrove, the young black woman who ends up casting her lot with Hank, is played by Halle Berry in a tour de force performance that frankly screamed for the Academy Award she so deservedly won!

Nothing we’ve ever seen Berry do before on screen could have prepared us for this.

She evidently went to a personal place to find her own idea for this character, and the result is more moving than we could have expected from her.

The fact that Hank is responsible for executing Leticia’s husband (a solid Sean Combs aka P Diddy) also seems a bit trite, although it does set up a key plot point quite nicely.

Yet the film’s near-missteps also serve to illustrate how delicate. and complicated. white/black relations are in the US.

Monster’s Ball is a film suffused with hate. When Hank’s father insults Leticia (the language is strong), Hank commits him to an old folks’ home, where a woman says to him, “You must love him very much.”

“No.” he answers, “I don’t. But he’s my father, so there you go.’

This is the environment Leticia is walking into, and she’s afraid. both of Hank and what he comes from.

An early scene between the two in Leticia’s home is wonderfully tentative as they sit on a sofa and verbally dance around each other. Leticia letting repeated shots of Jack Daniels determine her actions, Hank mortally afraid of what his baser instincts are telling him.

The movie’s final scene finds the characters’ stances reversed. Hank is in love (and just returned from the grocery with his favourite chocolate ice cream). But Berry’s Leticia is scared, and as Hank feeds her a spoonful of ice cream stares at him with a look that remains with us still.

Perhaps because it represents something larger than just what’s transpiring between these two people.

Hank Grotowski
Billy Bob Thornton
Sonny Grotowski
Heath Ledger
Buck Grotowski
Peter Boyle
Leticia Musgrove
Halle Berry
Tyrell Musgrove
Coronji Calhoun
Lawrence Musgrove
Sean ‘P Diddy’ Combs
Lucille
Taylor Simpson
Betty
Gabrielle Witcher
Vera
Amber Rules
Willie Cooper
Charles Cowan Jr.
Darryl Cooper
Taylor LaGrange
Ryrus Cooper
Yasiin Bey (Mos Def)
Dappa Smith
Anthony Bean
Georgia Ann Paynes
Francine Segal
Harvey Shoonmaker
John McConnell
Phil Huggins
Marcus Lyle Brown
Tommy Roulaine
Milo Addica
Booter
Leah Loftin
Warden Velesco
Will Rokos
Billy
Anthony Michael Frederick
Minister
John Wilmot
Clements
Dennis Clements
Nurse
Stephanie Claire
Maggie Cooper
Clara Hopkins Daniels
Ms Guillermo
Carol Sutton
Deputy Jones
Bernard Johnson

Director
Marc Forster