Ana de Armas, a popular blonde actress has publicly discussed her decision to play Marilyn Monroe in Andrew Dominik’s new movie. “Marilyn was the most famous person in the world,” de Armas said one time. “But because of that Norma became the most invisible person in the world. And this is what we want to tell.” And oh what a tale it is.
Blonde is like those dreamy and often indulgent ‘immersive art exhibits,’ where audience are surrounded by surreal moving images of Frida Kahlo works or Van Gogh and even Prince. It’s cinema, perhaps even art. But there are no conventional cinematic beats for audiences accustomed to experiencing film that way. That’s good fun. Some sort of shaking up of senses must be done—up to some extent though. Yet still you never really want your eyes off this film — or off de Armas herself, who absolutely dominates any scene she features (and she appears in almost all) — but Blonde isn’t always easy to love completely. The movie lasts nearly three hours and sometimes feels like an extended therapy session sit-in with shrink Lou talking about unresolved childhood trauma and our twisted psychological meanderings playing out on screen.
Yet surely, sessions need a 10-minute break just so we can catch breaths at certain intervals? It’s obvious Dominik wants us to walk through Monroe’s fractured fairy tale life if we’re ever supposed to really understand what she went through – fact or fiction – which was filled with rotten apples and evil stepmothers as he continuously reminds us throughout.
The novel Blonde on which the film is based was written by Joyce Carol Oates according to Publisher’s Weekly described as “dramatic, provocative and unsettlingly suggestive.”
Dominik picks up where Oates left off (Chopper, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, Killing Them Softly) re-imagining the life of Hollywood’s most famous leading ladies from her disturbing childhood as Norma Jeane to her rise to fame and romantic involvements. Yet it often blurs the lines between fact and fiction, focusing on Monroe’s burgeoning disparity between her public image and private self.
The film also stars Bobby Cannavale as “the ex-athlete,” an obvious reference to Joe DiMaggio, Monroe’s second husband, while Adrien Brody is a perfect “playwright” (Arthur Miller) who is Julianne Nicholson as Gladys, Marilyn’s troubled mother at the beginning of the film.
In this brooding first half, Xavier Samuel and Evan Williams play Cass Chaplin and Eddy G. Robinson Jr., charming adult children of famous actors who combine forces with Marilyn for a throuple. The initial 25 minutes introduce us to young Norma Jeane, a child deserted by her father in the care of her unstable, alcoholic and abusive mother. It is traumatic; yet what makes it outstandingly different from other films right from its start is Dominik’s choice to minimize audio effects usage. There are no swells here – or there! Instead we’re thrown into the middle of a hurricane that was once a little girl’s life. After that Cass and Eddy nudge Marilyn into taking bigger risks—both personally with them and in showbiz.
However, the Norma Jeane is always empty due to her absent father and her tortured past.
The director has said taking up this project was a little “like falling in love… I read it around 2002. It stuck with me but the major motivation was to demonstrate how child hood trauma would influence an adult life.”
This is seen throughout Norma Jeane’s life as she transforms into Marilyn Monroe that we all think we ‘know’, haunted by the past often seen as a walking wound. Dominik therefore oscillates between black-and-white and color through out the film thus shedding light on madness. There are those moments where Marilyn is being filmed by directors. In a seeming “normal” take, it doubles up as one of those strange psychological asides from Marilyn herself. At another point, she cries: “You’re not him—you never were!” Evidently referring to her father. Additionally, in yet another scene she becomes philosophical: ”Because at last isn’t all love based on delusion?”
That might be an inside joke for anyone who reads Blonde. The public’s unwavering allegiance to MM isn’t necessarily factual at all times. Just image. This brings memories of princess Diana back into my mind. In every case, beyond this personification there stood a human being who no one truly knew.
In the movie, De Armas meditates: “I’m not a star—I’m just a blonde.” It contained one of her best utterances: “Some of them love Marilyn, some of them hate Marilyn. What’s that got to do with me?”
Dominik effectively captures that split between the image and the real person depicted herein (Dominik). Scenes play out longer than tradition requires (Dominik). And sometimes there’s an interesting touch of claustrophobia with the director deliberately using close-ups and tight spaces instead of freedom.
Norma Jeane didn’t have any such thing as that. All of it is a wild time. This is what Blonde really is: an “experience.”
Norma Jeane Baker, born in Los Angeles on June 1, 1926, came to epitomize the star. She lived with her mother Gladys who was suffering from different mental illnesses (Langbaum). She was sent to the Los Angeles Orphans Home Society until she was 16 and at that point married her first husband James Dougherty.
Instead of delving much into Norma Jeane’s first marriage, Blonde focuses more on pulling apart emotionally between her parents. Then it segues into tracing Norma Jeane’s rise as a model then movie roles like that of 1953’s Niagara and eventually those iconic ones in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, How to Marry A Millionaire and most notably Billy Wilder’s The Seven Year Itch—that famous white dress scene and all. Dominik does this by going through these major events with some subtlety at times even digressing into Marilyn’s trauma while shooting the 1959 comedy Some Like it Hot.
Blonde sometimes wobbles when it goes overboard in portraying graphical details of Marilyn’s sufferings. Inside shots from Marilyn’s vagina are several POV shots especially during a forced abortion. In another scene she faces down her own drug-induced stupor while sitting on “the President”s bed—President Kennedy—who then has her perform oral sex on him That, plus lots of nudity probably contributed towards its NC-17 rating.”
In addition, there are some scenes in which she is surrounded by crowds of mostly men and male paparazzi that serve as a potent reminder of the horrors of misogyny. These devices jangle nerves on purpose but produce an odd contradiction. The brutality Marilyn experienced is being condemned but through strange sensationalism.
Intentionally disturbing? Looks so.
Among others, Brad Pitt produces the film. This outing takes its cue from his self-assuredness – and to some extent finances- thus creating a pace to it that makes “Blonde” watchable even if sometimes creepy. It therefore deserves every penny invested into it as an artwork.
Lately, de Armas got a 14-minute standing ovation at Blonde’s world premiere during the 2022 Venice Film Festival, meaning that any Netflix audience will certainly check it out come September 28th. She just becomes somebody else in this film
The acting performances on ‘Blonde’ are generally great with Williams Brody and Samuel shining up above the rest. Also, apart from de Armas, Nicholson might earn herself an award nomination for her role here: she haunts one as Norma Jeane’s mom.
Ana de Armas went all out researching Marilyn Monroe to the death—quite possibly her best work ever—and you can tell! In her words: “Her breathy voice and high pitched sound resulted because of someone who had no boundaries wanting to let everyone in … She had to relate intimately with people because she has never known that before.”
And this is what leads us to Blonde. Split together with what amounts to everything else presented by actors/filmmaker, we get trapped in a compelling but at times disconcerting world of Marilyn mirrors that doesn’t really allow for a complete exit from..
Watch free movies on Fmovies
