Blonde
Year: 2022
Director: Andrew Dominik
Starring: Adrien Brody, Bobby Canavale, Ana de Armas & Xavier Samuel
Runtime: 166 mins
BBFC: 18
Published: 05/10/22
Director: Andrew Dominik
Starring: Adrien Brody, Bobby Canavale, Ana de Armas & Xavier Samuel
Runtime: 166 mins
BBFC: 18
Published: 05/10/22
Shallow, vapid, attention seeking, dumb, blonde, all words that I have heard used to describe Marilyn Monroe over the years by her critics. The ‘blonde bombshell’ of the golden age of cinema who starred in some of the era’s most iconic films led a difficult and unhappy life behind the camera, one that Netflix’s new ‘biographical’ drama seeks to explore. Yet I find myself using all of those nasty words to describe Blonde, a film that goes to great lengths to degrade and dehumanise the already damaged woman at the centre of its story.
Following an abusive childhood, Norma Jeane Mortenson (Ana de Armas), seeks to reconnect with her estranged father by becoming a star in Hollywood films just like him. Adopting the on-screen persona of Marilyn Monroe, Norma Jeane finds herself the desire of men everywhere and her life soon spirals out of control as she battles addiction and abusive relationships.
Following an abusive childhood, Norma Jeane Mortenson (Ana de Armas), seeks to reconnect with her estranged father by becoming a star in Hollywood films just like him. Adopting the on-screen persona of Marilyn Monroe, Norma Jeane finds herself the desire of men everywhere and her life soon spirals out of control as she battles addiction and abusive relationships.
First things first, Blonde is not a biographical drama. Based on the book of the same name by Joyce Carol Oates, Blonde is a fictionalised and sensationalised account of the life of Norma Jeane/Marilyn with little to no basis in reality. Oates herself has made it very clear over the years that her book is not in any way representative of the real Norma Jeane, and the events that transpire are her own fictionalised versions of what she thinks happened.
This is where Blonde (the film) falls at the first hurdle because it has been marketed by director Andrew Dominik and distributor Netflix as a biopic, this is fundamentally not true. Blonde is instead a horror film about a woman whose life is so consumed by tragedy and abuse that she creates a persona to protect herself, eventually succumbing entirely to that persona.
The film has been gaining significant notoriety for its ‘graphic’ depictions of sexual violence which have bagged it an NC-17 rating in the U.S, the first film ever to release on streaming with that age rating. Meanwhile here in the UK Blonde received an 18 rating, and whilst Dominik and several others who worked on the film have come out defending this decision to make it as dark and graphic as they can in order to ‘accurately portray the struggle’ that Monroe and many other women have to deal with on a daily basis; I can’t help but feel that instead it only serves to sensationalise and trivialise women’s issues and degrade women even further.
Ana de Armas’ breasts deliver a stunning performance (as they are pretty much the sole focus of the film), with de Armas certainly looking the part of Norma Jeane/Marilyn but not really sounding it. De Armas supposedly went through extensive dialect coaching to achieve the former actress’ iconic breathy tone, but instead she just sound like Ana de Armas unsuccessfully trying to do an American accent. There are moments in the film where she is digitally transposed into Monroe’s iconic roles in films like Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and Some Like It Hot, and these moments are genuinely jaw dropping in how close de Armas resembles Monroe, and I feel like it’s forgivable to forget that you’re not watching actual archive footage of Monroe during these moments. That being said, the first time we see de Armas in the film she's supposed to be a seventeen year old Norma Jeane, and she really can't pass for a seventeen year old.
De Armas isn’t the only stunning lookalike either, Adrien Brody is cast as one of Monroe’s husbands, playwright Arthur Miller. It really is amazing how closely Brody resembles Miller, though his time in the film is fleeting.
But this is a big problem in Blonde, whilst there are plenty of decent lookalikes, the performances all feel subpar, and I get the feeling that a lot of that stems from the script. Nobody talks like this! Not even in the 30’s/40’s/50’s. Everything is delivered in such flowery prose, and the result feels like every single actor in this film is chewing at the scenery and hamming it up as much as they can. It feels like I’m watching a William Shakespeare tragedy at times with the way people communicate to each other, and it’s so jarring.
This is where Blonde (the film) falls at the first hurdle because it has been marketed by director Andrew Dominik and distributor Netflix as a biopic, this is fundamentally not true. Blonde is instead a horror film about a woman whose life is so consumed by tragedy and abuse that she creates a persona to protect herself, eventually succumbing entirely to that persona.
The film has been gaining significant notoriety for its ‘graphic’ depictions of sexual violence which have bagged it an NC-17 rating in the U.S, the first film ever to release on streaming with that age rating. Meanwhile here in the UK Blonde received an 18 rating, and whilst Dominik and several others who worked on the film have come out defending this decision to make it as dark and graphic as they can in order to ‘accurately portray the struggle’ that Monroe and many other women have to deal with on a daily basis; I can’t help but feel that instead it only serves to sensationalise and trivialise women’s issues and degrade women even further.
Ana de Armas’ breasts deliver a stunning performance (as they are pretty much the sole focus of the film), with de Armas certainly looking the part of Norma Jeane/Marilyn but not really sounding it. De Armas supposedly went through extensive dialect coaching to achieve the former actress’ iconic breathy tone, but instead she just sound like Ana de Armas unsuccessfully trying to do an American accent. There are moments in the film where she is digitally transposed into Monroe’s iconic roles in films like Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and Some Like It Hot, and these moments are genuinely jaw dropping in how close de Armas resembles Monroe, and I feel like it’s forgivable to forget that you’re not watching actual archive footage of Monroe during these moments. That being said, the first time we see de Armas in the film she's supposed to be a seventeen year old Norma Jeane, and she really can't pass for a seventeen year old.
De Armas isn’t the only stunning lookalike either, Adrien Brody is cast as one of Monroe’s husbands, playwright Arthur Miller. It really is amazing how closely Brody resembles Miller, though his time in the film is fleeting.
But this is a big problem in Blonde, whilst there are plenty of decent lookalikes, the performances all feel subpar, and I get the feeling that a lot of that stems from the script. Nobody talks like this! Not even in the 30’s/40’s/50’s. Everything is delivered in such flowery prose, and the result feels like every single actor in this film is chewing at the scenery and hamming it up as much as they can. It feels like I’m watching a William Shakespeare tragedy at times with the way people communicate to each other, and it’s so jarring.
But I must admit that I loved Chayse Irvin’s cinematography. The whole film really is stunning to look at. Switching between 4:3 and 16:9 aspect ratios, as well as black and white and colour depending on whether we are seeing things from Norma Jeane’s point of view or Marilyn’s. But something that really got on my nerves, which I have already briefly mentioned, is the obsession with de Armas’ boobs. She spends an unnecessary amount of time naked in this film, and whenever she is her boobs are always the focal point of the frame. Even when the image is blurred out as is the case fairly frequently, her nipples maintain good focus and prominence in the picture for no other reason than de Armas has some very nice-looking breasts.
There’s also a number of shots from within Marilyn’s womb, looking at a growing foetus (that also looks like a fully formed baby despite being in the first trimester, clearly Dominik has never seen images of a foetus before), and from insider her vaginal canal looking out between her legs. These shots are there entirely for shock value and to attain that controversial NC-17 rating. It’s not the sexual abuse that earned it that spot, it’s these moments that violate Monroe’s body in unthinkable ways.
If I am talking about controversy, then I must of course address the rape scenes. There are two and online discourse seems to highlight the second scene much more than the first, yet it’s the first I found more disturbing. Neither of them are as graphic as people would have you believe, you don’t really see anything. But it’s the implication of what’s happening, the knowledge that it isn’t entirely consensual that makes it understandably uncomfortable. But we’ve seen worse in many modern teen dramas that deal with sexual abuse, Thirteen Reasons Why springs to mind. This isn’t to downplay the severity of these scenes, but you don’t see as much as people are making out is my point here.
I very much disliked Blonde. It is a film devoid of all sense of joy and happiness, and instead favours lingering on the torture and degradation of women. In Dominik’s apparent attempt to depict Monroe in a feminist light, he has swung so far in the other direction that he portrays her (and by extension de Armas) as a hapless victim that’s incapable of being anything other than a piece of meat abused by men because of the excessive and gratuitous nudity that serves little to no purpose.
In the space of two hours and forty-six minutes Dominik manages to tell us nothing about the kind of woman Norma Jeane really was, and she remains as much of an enigma as before, albeit now a victim to a whole new generation of men and arguably more misunderstood. Blonde does more damage than it does good, and is a film I shall promptly want to forget I ever watched.
There’s also a number of shots from within Marilyn’s womb, looking at a growing foetus (that also looks like a fully formed baby despite being in the first trimester, clearly Dominik has never seen images of a foetus before), and from insider her vaginal canal looking out between her legs. These shots are there entirely for shock value and to attain that controversial NC-17 rating. It’s not the sexual abuse that earned it that spot, it’s these moments that violate Monroe’s body in unthinkable ways.
If I am talking about controversy, then I must of course address the rape scenes. There are two and online discourse seems to highlight the second scene much more than the first, yet it’s the first I found more disturbing. Neither of them are as graphic as people would have you believe, you don’t really see anything. But it’s the implication of what’s happening, the knowledge that it isn’t entirely consensual that makes it understandably uncomfortable. But we’ve seen worse in many modern teen dramas that deal with sexual abuse, Thirteen Reasons Why springs to mind. This isn’t to downplay the severity of these scenes, but you don’t see as much as people are making out is my point here.
I very much disliked Blonde. It is a film devoid of all sense of joy and happiness, and instead favours lingering on the torture and degradation of women. In Dominik’s apparent attempt to depict Monroe in a feminist light, he has swung so far in the other direction that he portrays her (and by extension de Armas) as a hapless victim that’s incapable of being anything other than a piece of meat abused by men because of the excessive and gratuitous nudity that serves little to no purpose.
In the space of two hours and forty-six minutes Dominik manages to tell us nothing about the kind of woman Norma Jeane really was, and she remains as much of an enigma as before, albeit now a victim to a whole new generation of men and arguably more misunderstood. Blonde does more damage than it does good, and is a film I shall promptly want to forget I ever watched.