YMMV / Monster's Ball

• Best Known for the Fanservice: It's largely remembered because of Halle Berry's steamy sex scene, but it was good enough on its own merits to win her an Oscar. Though the scene in question is known equally for the narm attached to it. ("Make me feel GGGRRRRRRD!")
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: The infamous sex scene between Hank and Leticia. It comes right out of nowhere, attributes nothing to the plot, and it's never talked about again.
• Consolation Award: Halle Berry's Best Actress Academy Award for this movie is considered by some a consolation towards black actresses - including Angela Bassett, nominated several years prior for What's Love Got to Do with It (1993), and Whoopi Goldberg, who was nominated for The Color Purple (1985) eight years before that and eventually won in the Supporting Actress category for Ghost (1990).
• Hollywood Homely: Played with. Although visibly de-glammed, Halle is still regarded as beautiful—Hank consistently refers to her as such.
• Jerkass Woobie:
  • Hank, who was abusive to his son prior to his death and has to deal with caring for an abusive racist father.
  • Leticia. Despite her husband's incarceration on death row and abuse towards her obese son, she loved both of them deeply. Which makes it sad when she loses both of them.
• Mainstream Obscurity: Wait....that was the film that won Halle Berry her historic Oscar?
• Narm: Leticia asking Hank to "make me feel good" as she crawls into his lap, comes off as hilarious rather than seductive.
• Nightmare Fuel: Leticia's son being killed by a hit and run driver. While walking home in the dark. While it's pouring rain and almost nobody would stop to help her.
• She Really Can Act: Halle Berry was and, in a lot of circles still is, seen as simply a Ms. Fanservice, but her role as Leticia got rave reviews and shocked many with how much tragedy and depth she brought to the role, especially when Leticia's son dies. This eventually led to her winning the Academy Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role, and so far, the only black actress to have done so.
• Tear Jerker: Leticia breaking down over her son's death.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic: Both Hank and Leticia, who were abusive to their sons prior to their deaths. And yet the audience is meant to sympathize with the leads and hope they get a happy ending.
• The Woobie: Leticia. She loses her husband, she loses her son to a hit-and-run driver, loses one of her jobs due to being late, has to move out of her home due to rent past due, and then she eventually finds out that the man she's in love with is the same correctional officer who walked her husband to the electric chair. Though it's ambiguous whether she stays with him or not.

---