PLOT: An impressionistic depiction of the life of Marilyn Monroe (Ana de Armas), from her early days as Norma Jeane Mortenson to her eventual crowning as perhaps the biggest sex symbol of the 20th century.
REVIEW: Andrew Dominik’s Blonde is a movie to wrestle with. It’s a work of art whose craft cannot be diminished, but it’s also an incredibly tough watch, ranking as one of the most intense, upsetting films in recent years. While the NC-17 rating is ridiculous, it’s still not for the faint of heart, shining a light on the lurid side of celebrity and the psychological and physical cost of being a sex goddess.
One thing Blonde is not is a fact-based account of Marilyn Monroe’s life. Like the book by Joyce Carol Oates that it’s based on, the movie is an impressionistic fictionalization of Monroe’s life. Some of the more provocative moments, including a sequence where John F. Kennedy rapes her, will be thoroughly debated, but again this isn’t the biopic some may see it as. Instead, it’s an indictment of how society treated Marilyn as little more than a sex object throughout her life (even before she became “Marilyn Monroe,”) with no one getting off easy here.
Monroe suffers a great deal right from the time she reaches Hollywood when her job interview with 20th Century Fox consists of a silent Daryl F. Zanuck sodomizing the actress and then sending her on her way with a new contract at the studio. As played by de Armas, Monroe herself is a deeply wounded woman, adopting a girlish, breathy persona perhaps, as the movie depicts here, as a reaction to never having had a father. Instead, he’s a God-like figure described by her neurotic mother (Julianne Nicholson – in a frighteningly intense performance) as being from Hollywood. She punishes Norma Jeane by trying to drown her in a bathtub, with her viewed as little more than the thing that kept her apart from the man she loved – or so she convinces herself.
The movie has a conceit where Marilyn frequently receives letters from a man claiming to be her father, which might be real or also figments of her imagination. The movie shows her, unsettlingly, trying to fill the gap by taking up with a series of older men she marries, disconcertingly calling them “daddy” when they make love. One is Joe DiMaggio (Bobby Cannavale), who’s initially a nice enough guy until jealousy turns him into an abusive lout. She’s luckier with Adrien Brody’s Arthur Miller, who takes her intellect seriously (she’s depicted as extraordinarily well-read), but he can’t resist using their relationship in his work.
Despite the big co-stars, Blonde is de Armas’ film, and she vanishes into the role, doing a great job adopting Monroe’s famously breathy voice. She looks incredible, and Dominik cast her well, as you had to have someone extraordinarily beautiful in the role to pull the part off. You believe it when you see virtually every man she meets leer at her, even a priest in one throwaway bit. Women don’t treat her any better, and Blonde makes it seem as if Monroe never had one person, other than maybe Miller, who actually cared about her.
In terms of relationships, the movie largely focuses on a menage-a-trois with Charlie Chaplin Jr. and Edward G. Robinson Jr. Here the film, as it frequently does, plays fast and loose with the facts, with a significant plot point centring around one of their deaths, even though both men outlived Marilyn by many years. Blonde is probably the least historically accurate biopic ever, which is why this should rightly be considering historical fiction.
The craft is brilliant, with Dominik shooting the film mostly in black and white with a 1:33:1 aspect ratio, although it varies, and the film occasionally transitions to color. The score is by Nick Cave and Warren Ellis, and their work is evocative and avant-garde, giving the film a surreal, almost David Lynch-ian vibe.
The film will no doubt be most controversial in the depictions of Monroe’s abortions, with her undergoing a few graphic procedures in the movie, neither of which seems to be by choice. These traumatic moments likely earned the film its rating (although it’s not especially gruesome). Still, to be sure, in the so-called golden age of Hollywood, the bodies of starlets were rarely their own, and the movie depicts that in a way that, while maybe not fact-based in Monroe’s case, feels legitimate.
In the end, Blonde is not a movie one “enjoys.” It’s a complicated, challenging watch, but it’s also a great work of art, and kudos to Netflix for allowing Dominik to make something so uncompromising. Oscar-wise, it will likely be too bold for the Academy or, indeed, a mainstream audience. However, if you have a strong stomach, it’s a much watch, and de Armas is extraordinary in her best showcase to date.