Don’t believe the anti-hype! This 2022 Marilyn Monroe biopic, the first Netflix production to be rated NC-17 (for rape and “bloody menstrual cunnilingus”) and the second screen adaptation of Joyce Carol Oates’ 2000 novel BLONDE (having been preceded by a 2001 TV miniseries), is not as terrible as many pundits have been claiming. Yet it’s also a far cry from the masterpiece writer-director Andrew Dominik promised—for the record, Dominik compared his film to CITIZEN KANE and proclaimed it “one of the ten best movies ever made” (which likely played a large part in triggering the negative reception).
Don’t believe the anti-hype!
In truth the film, produced by Dominik’s former co-star (in THE ASSASSINATION OF JESSE JAMES BY THE COWARD ROBERT FORD and KILLING THEM SOFTLY) Brad Pitt, is a deeply flawed but worthwhile product. It’s certainly above average in the category of Marilyn Monroe biopics, a retinue that includes a plethora of mediocre TV movies and trashy exploitation pics.
…a deeply flawed but worthwhile product
BLONDE conveys the life of Ms. Monroe (Ana De Armas) through a succession of telling vignettes, some of them well-chosen and some not. They include Marilyn as a child (Lily Fisher) being driven toward a Hollywood Hills brush fire by her mentally ill mother (Julianne Nicholson); auditioning for filmmakers who are admittedly more interested in her ass than her talent; paying a most uncomfortable visit to her ageing mother in a mental hospital; engaging in (“enjoying” would be the wrong word) a threesome with two dudes; getting knocked around by her second husband Joe DiMaggio (Bobby Cannavale); performing the immortal subway grate scene from THE SEVEN YEAR ITCH (1955); being seduced by the intellectually inclined playwright Arthur Miller (Adrien Brody); verbally abusing director Billy Wilder (Ravil Isyanov) on the set of SOME LIKE IT HOT (1959); giving oral sex to President John F. Kennedy (Caspar Phillipson), who doesn’t seem too into it; and, in a drugged-out stupor, frantically scouring her house in an attempt to find cash to tip a delivery boy.
BLONDE conveys the life of Ms. Monroe (Ana De Armas) through a succession of telling vignettes, some of them well-chosen and some not.
All this is interspaced with clips from several of Marilyn’s films (with De Armas composited in and Vanessa Lemonides supplying her singing voice), projected more often than not in a spectral movie theater of the mind. We also get lots of developing fetus shots, illustrating what according to this film was Marilyn’s major upset: the fact that she was unable to carry any of her multiple pregnancies to term.
At one point Marilyn asks “Did somebody die?,” which sums up the funeral-appropriate tone. Throughout, the ambient sound has been muted rather severely, giving the proceedings a dreary solemnity that isn’t helped at all by the fact that its protagonist has an emotional range that’s quite limited (it seems she’s either sad, apprehensive or shocked). That certainly affects the lead performance of Ana De Armas (who stepped in after Naomi Watts and Jessica Chastain dropped out), which in keeping with the film’s overall gist feels one-note. She is, however, always compelling to watch.
The same can be said for the film as whole, which is nothing if not eye-catching. Andrew Dominik and cinematographer Chayse Irvin’s visual treatment includes many show-offy techniques on loan from Martin Scorsese—gunshot flashbulb popping (from RAGING BULL), a bodicam drunk scene (from MEAN STREETS), etc.—combined with a Nicolas Roegian incorporation of plainly unreal elements and a visual hue that switches willy-nilly between color and black-and-white, and has a tendency to shift its aspect ratio unpredictably.
The result is a potent depiction of a life told in the form of an extended bad dream, and, the tonal issues aside, it works. A suitably ethereal Angelo Badalamenti-esque score by Nick Cave (who Dominik profiled in the 2016 doco ONE MORE WITH FEELING) and Warren Ellis completes the effect.
The result is a potent depiction of a life told in the form of an extended bad dream, and, the tonal issues aside, it works.
Vital Statistics
BLONDE
Netflix
Director: Andrew Dominik
Producers: Brad Pitt, Dede Gardner, Jeremy Kleiner, Tracey Landon, Scott Robertson
Screenplay: Andrew Dominik
(Based on a novel by Joyce Carol Oates)
Cinematography: Chayse Irvin
Editing: Adam Robinson
Cast: Ana De Armas, Adrien Brody, Bobby Cannavale, Lily Fisher, Julianne Nicholson, Tygh Runyan, Michael Drayer, Sara Paxton, Ryan Vincent, Vanessa Lemonides, Patrick Brennan, Rob Brownstein, Evan Williams, Xavier Samuel, Dan Butler, David Warshofsky, Rebecca Wisocky, Sonny Valicenti, George Sanders, Ethan Cohn