Starring: Ana de Armas, Adrien Brody, Bobby Cannavale, Caspar Phillipson, Xavier Samuel, Lily Fisher, Julianne Nicholson, Sara Paxton
Distributor: Netflix
Runtime: 167 mins. Reviewed in Oct 2022
Reviewer: Fr Peter Malone msc
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A ‘fictional biography’ of screen icon, Marilyn Monroe, re-creating the events of her life, the highlights of her cinema career, her marriages, and the tragic elements of her life.
The Blonde of the title is Marilyn Monroe. The film is described as a ‘fictional biography’ based on a book by American writer, Joyce Carol Oates, who emphasises the fiction by referring to her as Norma Jeane. This is a solid film, running for almost three hours.
It raises the question as to the place of Marilyn Monroe in 21st-century consciousness. It is 60 years since she died. She is very much a 20th-century figure. She is spoken of as an icon of the Screen – a ‘Screen Goddess’. And there is always that iconic image of her skirt fluttering as she stands over the windy subway grating. So, what is the interest in exploring her life, realistically or imaginatively? Older audiences will have seen her films in the past. Younger audiences may be wondering who she was, why she was so important.
The important aspect of this film is the fictional aspect. Yet, it often plays as a realistic portrait. However, the visual style moves between the real and the surreal, her life and career, yet her uncertainties, fears, determination, and having to deal with her broken family life, the initial exploitation by studio executives and others, her marriage to Joe DiMaggio, the baseball player referred to as ‘Ex-Athlete’ (Cannavale), her marriage to playwright Arthur Miller, referred to as ‘The Playwright’ (Brody).
It should be said that the performance by Cuban actress de Armas (Knives Out, No Time to Die) is impressive. So many times she looks and sounds like the actual Marilyn, and, we must assume, like the actual Norma. The actress identifies with both Norma and Marilyn, repeats some of the famous sequences from her films – an audition for Don’t Bother to Knock, the re-creation of the trailer for Niagara (‘Niagara and Marilyn Monroe, the two most electrifying sites in the world’ – from 1952), ‘Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend’ from Gentleman Prefer Blondes, her working with Billy Wilder for The Seven Year Itch (and the iconic scene, filmed in front of the press and huge crowds of onlookers), and some re-creations of Some Like it Hot.
De Armas sustains the character of Marilyn Monroe, especially in her deteriorating years, the episode of going to sing for John F Kennedy’s birthday (this scene not re-created), and her final days, overdosing at the age of 36.
This dramatisation of the fiction means audiences will tend to take what they see as what actually happened. There is the fearful little girl, her mentally unbalanced mother (Nicholson), the continued yearning for an absent father, one of the main motive drives in her life, a quick sketch of her becoming an adult, photos, the nude calendar, entry into films.
Part of the drama is Marilyn’s sexual adventures and sexuality, but also her initial exploitation by older men, and the introduction of the theme of her longing for a child. Later there is the experience of her pregnancy with ‘The Playwright’ and the loss of the child.
Loss of child, loss of father, hard mother (whom she eventually visits after 10 years).
The sexuality themes and her exploitation are dramatised in a scene which some audiences have found too repellent.
On the one hand, there is a great deal that is familiar to audiences who know Marilyn’s story (although this reviewer would have liked something on her going to England and working with Laurence Olivier in The Prince and the Showgirl, and, strangely, with Arthur Miller as ‘The Playwright’, there is nothing on The Misfits).
Obviously not a definitive portrait of Marilyn but a disturbing one, an evocative one, ultimately sad and tragic.
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