Blonde
From her volatile childhood as Norma Jeane, through her rise to stardom and romantic entanglements, this reimagined fictional portrait of Hollywood legend Marilyn Monroe blurs the lines of fact and fiction to explore the widening split between her public and private selves.
- Released: 2022-11-11
- Runtime: 120 minutes
- Genre: Drama, History, Mystery
- Stars: Ana de Armas, Adrien Brody, Bobby Cannavale, Garret Dillahunt, Julianne Nicholson, Sara Paxton, Toby Huss, Scoot McNairy, Rebecca Wisocky, Catherine Dent, Sonny Valicenti, David Warshofsky, Evan Williams, Xavier Samuel, Ned Bellamy, Caspar Phillipson, Lucy DeVito, Michael Masini, Spencer Garrett, Chris Lemmon, Dan Butler, Lily Fisher, Colleen Foy, Haley Webb, Brian Konowal, Tatum Shank, Andrew Thacher, Alexander Kanellakos, Dominic Leeder, Lidia Sabljic, Isabel Dresden, Skip Pipo, Tyler Bruhn, Ravil Isyanov, Tim Ransom, Judy Kain, Time Winters, Rob Brownstein, Danielle Jane Darling, Mia McGovern Zaini, Rob Nagle, Emil Beheshti, Jeremy Shouldis, Ethan Cohn, Steve Bannos, Mike Ostroski, Deana Molle', Danielle Lima, Christopher Kriesa, Eric Matheny, Jerry Hauck, Scott Hislop, Dieterich Gray, Kiva Jump, Patrick Brennan, Chris Moss, Ryan Vincent, Brian Konowal, Eden Riegel, Tygh Runyan, Vanessa Lemonides, Michael Drayer, Claudia Smith, Mary-Pat Green, Ron West, Flynn Pratt, Scott Wilder, Sal Landi, Seth Meriwether, Darrin M. Schlie, Julián Rebolledo, Allan Havey, Tereza Rizzardi, Mia McGovern Zaini, Garret Dillahunt
- Director: Andrew Dominik
Comments
- abudhabimdc - 1 May 2024
i watched just for Ana De Armas
I can only say that the movie left me feeling disgusted and depressed! I just kept watching it till the end for Ana de Armas! She nailed the look and the acting, but everything else is depressing and too dark. And what's with the part about Kennedy? Did that really happen? If not, which is 80% likely not, the filmmakers are so low! Yuck! I hope I can get out of it soon. I need some sleeping pills!
Ana de Armas, you are amazing!! I watched her movie "Knives Out," her acting is unbelievable.
Please Netflix, don't do it again, it's not fair to great actors such as Ana.
I will watch Friends now just to relax from the darkness ive seen! - Lollylovesmovies - 12 January 2024
Truly AWFUL
This movie was horrendous. I can't think of one good thing to say about it. Not one. First of all it's way too long. Especially since they didn't really ever tell an actual story. Basically they just disparaged a lot of people. Who were real people not made up ones. Those real people have family that have to see this crap and know that even though there wasn't a shred a evidence to prove the things they say that people will still think of them like this and believe it's true. Also, according to this movie she was only happy about 3 days in her whole entire life. They did not miss an opportunity to show boobs though. It really is a terrible movie. Trust me do not waste your time. - greyscale-81519 - 19 November 2023
Someone should write a book disparaging Joyce Carol Oates
I am not sure why anyone ever green lit this movie if it was based on a woman who envied Marilyn's beauty so she created this fictional perspective of beautiful Marilyn's life. Rather than taking an opportunity to shine some light on the complicated star, this persona is someone you feel disgust. Ana de Armas looks splendidly close to Marilyn and she picked up her mannerisms perfectly, however the story is trash. I actually stopped playing the film it was so bad. This is not how I want to remember Marilyn.
If JCO was aiming to fabricate unverified accounts of Marilyn's Life she could have just got away with writing a thesis titled "I hate that I'll never be as beautiful As Marilyn". - levi-maayan - 3 January 2023
A superb glimpse of a male-dominated world
This is not a movie about Marilyn Monroe. It's a movie about A Marilyn Monroe in a toxic male environment, where you are being exploited, disrespected, looked-down upon and ignored by every men that surrounds you.
The beautiful cinematography, together with a fantastic performance by Ana de Armas, provide a yet gloomy look at a talented strong women, who had she lived in an equal & tolerant society, maybe would have contributed so much more to our world.
It doesn't matter that not all of this really happened. It's enough that some of it actually did for us to feel deep sorrow about our society. - ejnnls - 28 December 2022
The darkness is the movie's strength!
So, unlike many reviewers, I would argue that the movie's biggest strength is that it's not trying to sugarcode anything. Quite the contrary, showing the dark side of Norma Jean's life as Marilyn Monroe, is perhaps one of the few reasons to even see this movie and what makes it interesting as a biography.
The movie is, in many ways, portrating an empty shell of a woman who regress mentally as the story progress. Like in an almost David Lynch-esque plot, the viewer is presented by part realities and part dream-like scenarios - all blurred into one. We're taken on a journey as Norma Jean practically turns into her alter-ego persona of Ms Monroe, but not the ditzy fun version known from the movie screens, but rather a dark and twisted version of that same persona. The movie is trying to portay a mind getting more and more lost along the way and in the end we don't really know what is real and what is just illusions of the main character. The movie shows both the exploitations of a broken woman, but also the dark side of Hollywood where fame and glory is being achieved by - sex.
The acting is also fine, but while the movie is an interesting take in theory, it sort of falls flat on its own ambition and rather comes across as not just pretentious, but rightout boring. It needs to be aknowledged however that it's not an easy task to make a good and interesting biography, so where does one start? What should the angle be? How should the story be told in order not to fall into the trap of clichés? That's certainly questions the team behind this movie tried to figure out, but in the end it just doesn't work out for some reason.
The viewer is also left with so much question marks, especially regarding Norma Jean's upbringing. Shallowly, one could say that she, just like her biological mother, develops various mental health issues, but we are not told anything about the alleged sexual exploations Norma Jean had to endure during her upbringing, which could have given some sort of explanations and background as to why she later on both used sex to boost her career, but was already so numb to being exploited and used. - tariq-nasneed - 19 December 2022
Of course most people missed the point
This is not the type of movie where you can check your tik tok page while watching it. As shockingly as it may sound,you need to pay attention to the picture. Whaaaat? How dare you!?
It is a bold movie and honestly I was quite surprised seeing something like this in this day and age by none other than Netflix itself. Huge shock. The story explores the very damaged persona of Marilyn Monroe in an unique way. A movie as innovative as this has no right to be shown nowadays,especially to your average Marvel enthusiast. Some people seem to take this portrayal of MM rather personally,like it's beneath her or something of the sort. But let me remind them that Monroe was no Mother Theresa. She was a very promiscuous woman with a multitude of inner demons. She jumped from ship to ship so to speak. Intrinsically, she was almost a glorified prostitute. Sure she could sing and dance and,in a way, she had this alluring and enigmatic charm,but she was something we tend to call bad news. Of course,she was unique. Her charm,screen presence and philosophical nature(as strange as that may sound) made her simply an ICON.
I was flabbergasted upon hearing the news of De Armas being the lead but she proved me wrong. She managed to deliver despite a few shortcomings as a pronunciation error here and there or an accent slip. But,as far as I'm concerned,her portrayal of Monroe was solid and believable. I strongly recommend this movie. - leaschmidt-21213 - 11 December 2022
Realistic and honest
It's sad to see that this great film has such a low ratings. People seem to have their fantasy of Marilyn and nothing is permitte to shatter that image. But isn't it the duty of a filmmaker to investigate and offer different views of what we perceive as reality? I mean, none of us where there to witness the events at first hand. Everything we know is based on our choices of what we want to know and believe. The numerous negative reviews one sees given to Blonde, probably reflect a judgment on an idea of frivolity attached to the character itself. This is unfortunate and unfair to the movie and to Ana de Armas in particular. The whole point of this type of movie is, while keeping a degree of entertaining potential to the archetypal spectator for which 'all is well that ends well' formula, is necessary to leave the movie theater 'entertained' and pleased, such formulae risk running counter to the degrees of truthfulness that should be part and parcel of a, ultimately, more honest account and this one was, I think. - amblackheart - 30 November 2022
Controversial, in a bad way
The secret life of Marilyn Monroe revealed? Not quite. This movie is based off of a ficticious book written about Marilyn. Andrew Dominik sadly went too far. Ana de Armas does a pretty good acting job, visually she doesn't quite look like Marilyn Monroe, but good enough to play this role. No acting perfomance, however, could save this movie. From unnecessary sex scenes, to talking fetuses, to random switches from black and white to color, this movie never had a chance. Dominik serves up controversy piping hot, but the taste is terrible. The writers and director went big, but came up with little to leave the viewer happy about. - Rodrigo_Amaro - 15 November 2022
Depressive, Unfair & Unbalanced Biopic
When the huge outcry and backlash against "Blonde" came up a little before the film's release I was saddened about some of the poor reasoning given to all of those emotions.
The major (and pointless) criticism was all aimed at Cuban lead actress Ana de Armas being cast in the role of Marilyn Monroe rather than an American actress. It was like as seeing people not believing in the power of acting and were misdujugind that someone could fail simply for not following exactly European/American patterns that could be closer to what Marilyn was. A dumb escuse yet valid to most audiences. Truth is that "Blonde" least problem was with such casting. Ana de Armas is quite phenomenal and she really gets things done when you see the movie. While her accent appears here and there, for the majority of the movie you can get the strong sense she actually captured Monroe's essence, the sex-appeal and the vibration she got with audiences on her films. But after watching the movie you'll understand why people hated it, disliked it or didn't find anything so worth relevant. The problem wasn't with de Armas, it was a far more growing concern in showing a dark side of one of the major stars of Hollywood during its Golden Era. It's a mess of a movie that I won't recover.
This shouldn't be made at all. Period. Yet I have to extend myself a little on reasoning why. It's based on a fictional account of Marilyn's life written by Joyce Carol Oates (who has an amazing short story made into a very obscure and excellent movie called "Smooth Talk" and I advise you to read the story and watch it). So, this is fiction related to real life personalities and it's very easy to ignore when it's writing material rather than movies, which is a wider form of art when it comes to reaching to people and they'll all believe in what they're seeing. It's not like saying what Oates wrote was all lies or fabricated since if knowing the world's reality of power, success and fame in Hollywood goes, plenty of nasty things go all under the carpet and goes unnoticed, it's a fact. But the level of conjectures and situations presented ammount to such a pile of things that one can't buy it, and even some we could accept it as facts, the main obstacle that prevents this movie of being a successful one is that it's simply a biopic of Marilyn Monroe with her lowest, dirtiest and shameful moments and that I cannot buy. You want to convince me that through her greatest successful moments while filming all of the great famous films that made her the greatest on-screen presence of the 1950's she was never happy, satistied, pleased or enjoying the moment and that's what led to the real tragedy in 1962, I won't have it. I cannot. The recognition, the praise and the countless fans when her career leveled up in many movies are all put together through sad and tragic depressive moments and it makes you feel like she never enjoyed anything in her life. It's pathetic.
And we know that she had some confidence in her bones to avoid many situations and escape many situations other actresses couldn't have.
If you're about to get on board and watch this thing, be warned: it's a very depressive story without any glamour and glitz about the star. The scripts treats Marilyn as a suffering beautiful woman in search of her absent father and seeking in plenty of males the ideal of a caring father figure. The bits of facts such as her marriages with sportsman Joe DiMaggio (Bobby Cannavale) and playwright Arthur Miller (Adrien Brody) are all there...but they are identified for their professions and not their names. What was all about this protection when everybody was already dead? Idiotic.
But it goes further when it presents a theory threesome involving her and the sons of Charlie Chaplin and Edward G. Robinson's sons - of which it was quite interesting to see but much unlikely to have had happened. But the majority of the time the film paints her as a severely depressed woman who never managed to find a place of her own and even when success comes she's still low and in misery. How come when she reaches her dreams of becoming an actress she never profits from and there's always some tragedy or trauma and then she's never happy? No one can master the art of faking it for the media and the public for too long (Golden Hollywood had its tricks, I know, but some things would always come out like Montgomery Clift's addiction to alcohol after his car crash and facial surgery).
You're telling me the hottest sex symbol of its period and one of the greatest box-office hit stars of the 1950's never enjoyed the glamour of it all? Not real. This is a movie destined to disintegrate younger viewers who know nothing about Marilyn Monroe into thinking she was a lost, lonely soul who was successful in being a star but a failure in personal terms because of many past traumas. It happens but the movie never makes us see that she enjoyed the fame she got. Never. If that was the real deal then why keep going with such career? It's like insanity, you'll keep on the same losing stream over and over waiting for a change to get a better/different result and you know you'll never get it.
But let's forget the theories and imagine it all happened. Does this make of "Blonde" a good movie? Nope. Andrew Dominik is a very talented director as evidenced in other movies. But this one manages to be his worst. Terrible edictorial syles, boring at parts and eventually dull as a whole. He simply could not make me care for any of the characters involved and that includes Marilyn presented as a childich character.
There's no life nor blood into this and it was a really hard viewing for me. It dragged on and on and on. He makes a painstakingly film in certain regards but mostly hides himself behind lame artsitic choices that only hurts the experience of watching. Many back and forth in the story (I usually like those but it's a mess here), reality and dream are mixed with each other and one almost gets the impression he's trying to make us conclude that everything we're seeing is a dream. More like a nightmare, I think.
For all that is conjuctured as facts the movie can get some appeal among viewers of today who think the world of yesterday was exactly as today. Truth. It was. And in those harsh and painful moments that "Blonde" benefits in getting audiences to it, or the ones fascinated by the mystique of Monroe. But it's all about tragedy of which we see her being raped by a major studio mogul (of which there are known rumours) or the mysterious encounters with an American president of which we all know who was and the film presents a bizarre situation in which he requests her sexual presence while dealing with major political crisis. Somehow, those moments were believalbe, since the powers of be tend to hide their shady things and there was no one to deny them or prove them in the years to come. Hollywood and the White House protecting their own rather than just cause a monumental scandal like we have today.
I don't see a polarized division when it comes to this film, the negativity from viewers and critics are a majority and they're not wrong (some are, as I mentioned early on). Armas delivers a good dramatic performance and I can sort of like imagining getting some awards recognition (not Oscar though). The film's failure lies in its presentation, storyline and for being a theoritical biopic flick that alienaties viewers and reinvents history. There's tragedy in Marilyn's life, no one can't deny that, but there's also glory, happiness and an everlasting legacy that brings joy and good memories on film viewers. This movie makes it seem that she never got anything right in her life. 3/10.
