Feb. 19, 2002 – "Monster's Ball" is the unlikely tale of a white, racist corrections officer and the black wife of a man he helped put to death in the electric chair, who fall into a relationship with each other though a series of events, which include three deaths.
But despite the unlikeliness of it all, the movie, according to the critics, comes off fully believable and without sentimentality.
The proof would be an Academy Award nomination for Best Screenplay.
Halle Berry, playing Leticia Musgrove, widow and mother of a 10-year-old boy, was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress.
Billy Bob Thornton, playing Han Grotowski gives a gut-wrenching, painfully realistic performance as the son of a brutal, racist father, played by Peter Boyle.
Thornton portrays a multi-layered man, who is at once prejudiced and suspicious and polite and, in the end, basically decent.
Berry, according to the New York Times, "proves herself to be an actress of impressive courage and insight."
Grotowski and Musgrove at first find a common ground in the detachment they have from their emotions.
But in the spirit of change, they both become something else and through their sterling performances assure the movie does not become a pedantic lecture on the evils of racism, rage and child abuse.
The Times called "Monster's Ball a "tough, heartfelt new film," with images that give the film "the density and strangeness of real life."
It starts Thursday at Market Square East.