Ana de Armas, Adrien Brody, Bobby Cannavale, Julianne Nicholson, Xavier Samuel, Evan Williams, Caspar Phillipson, David Warshofsky, Dan Butler and Lucy DeVito
A biopic with a difference. The 2000 novel 'Blonde' by Joyce Carol Oates is adapted for a fictional look at the iconic screen siren for a questionable, controversial view on her life...
Following a childhood bereft with emotional scars and being seperated from her mentally ill mother Gladys (Nicholson), Norma Jeane Mortenson (de Armas) hits the growing movie industry of America in the early 1950s in an attempt to become a star.
Taking the name 'Marilyn Monroe', she encounters a number of people who shape her outlook on both life and the industry, including a New York Yankees player (Cannavale) and a Playwright (Brody). All the while, she fights the emotional demons of her past.
Becoming a global screen sex siren is not easy for Marilyn Monroe, but the world adores her and what she represents. Yet the fragile woman inside struggles to truly find peace with herself and her life, despite the world being hers for the taking...
Take everything you expect to see in a biopic, and throw it out the window.
Director Andrew Dominik uses the hugely successful 2000 novel Blonde as inspiration for this creative, often subjective and questionable look at the life of Hollywood superstar Marilyn Monroe. While the novel has always been seen and marketed as a fictional take on Marilyn's life, Dominik interjects both fact and fiction in a character study that aims for scandal for the adult market over a welcoming insight into her life and career.
For example, the son of actor Charlie Chaplin, Charles Chaplin Jr., played by Xavier Samuel begins a polyamorous affair with Monroe and Eddy Robinson Jr., played by Evan Williams. It's played out as a destructive, perverse, scandalous and somewhat uncomfortable affair, with Charles and Eddy looking like LA pin-up gigolos than the family / work men they really were. The film is peppered with much of these fantastical, dreamlike encounters that add to the self-destructive, fragile mindset of Monroe.
With the right material, Ana de Armas she may have shone brighter in ther role and been able to do more, but in 'Blonde' she brings the physical performance but fails to do anything else.
Ana de Armas does a good job of portraying Marilyn / Norma, helped along by her blonde wig, plump red lips and beauty spot. Yet, she spends most of this playing the bubbly blonde as a confused, hurt, lonely, confused and naive young woman. There is little to the character that you truly feel able to connect with, or even want to accept as a reflection of the screen siren we know so well. She is walking a painful, often depressive journey and there is nothing to enjoy.
Even with support from the likes of Adrian Brody and Bobby Cannavale as her un-named husbands who all add new slants to her life and career, and Julianne Nicholson as her destructive mother it's truly a work of art from Dominik rather than approachable biopic. It's hard to know what even is real or not. There could have been room for the demons Monroe faced, but also more of the life she lived, the people she met and experiences across Hollywood and beyond. Instead, it's a very focused look with very focused narrative that fails to be engaging, interesting or appealing to those who either know Monroe from her work or not.
Creatively, with it's cutting to and from different aspect ratios and from colour to black and white, it's a technical dream. This helps us see the story in that true vein of the 40s and 50s, just how the world saw Monroe. That, at least, tries to be inventive. For everything else, it's a floundering mess that is clearly being bold in presenting something truly unexpected, but doesn't hit the mark.
There's no showmanship of 'Bohemian Rhapsody' or drama of 'Walk The Line' in this biopic. 'Blonde' is a disjointed and questionable attempt to shake the pristine image of Marilyn Monroe for a darker look at her world. It just fails to do so.
'Blonde' is a Plan B Entertainment production
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