Ana De Armas Shines In Punishing Marilyn Monroe Biopic

Andrew Dominik’s Blonde, adapted from Joyce Carol Oates’ novel of the same name, is less a straight-up biopic and more a cultural condemnation. It uses the oft-told tale of Norma Jeane Mortenson/Marilyn Monroe to offer a broad swipe at how women are viewed and treated in Hollywood, but at times it seems to be playing a more complex game. It sits alongside the recent television shows and miniseries that have sought to redeem or rehabilitate the pop culture image of women whom history initially misjudged. Think, offhand, The People vs. O.J. Simpson (which affirmed prosecutor Marcia Clark as the hero of the infamous 1990’s murder trial), Pam and Tommy Lee and Framing Brittany Spears. However, Dominik is less interested in re-validating the reputation of its protagonist, arguing instead that such attempts are immaterial and glorified virtue signaling.

Opening in a limited theatrical release today before its NetflixNFLX
debut on September 28, Blonde is a sprawling, visually dynamic and impressionistic variation on the cradle-to-grave biopic. Most of the film is black-and-white, with key narrative moments presented in living (but not alive) color. Much has been made of the film’s onscreen content; it’s the first NC-17 movie to be released for and on a streaming service. There is a long history, at least from Pulp Fiction to Joker, of films not explicitly tagged as action or horror being tagged as extreme for having even a modest amount of truly R-rated content. Likewise, I’m guessing Blonde could have fidgeted its way to an R rating if it wanted. While there are onscreen moments of sexual assault and battery, the most brutal violence is emotional and psychological.

Blonde operates on the Pan’s Labyrinth rule of offering up its most brutal onscreen violence first, so it doesn’t have to go that hard throughout the movie. The 166-minute picture opens with our young protagonist (played as a kid by Lily Fisher) dealing with a mentally ill mother (Julianne Nicholson, leaving it all on the table). She resents the life she didn’t get to have due to being a mother. Norma Jeane’s father is nowhere to be found, which leads to a life of pronounced ‘daddy issues.’ The notion of a young woman growing up without a father latching on to potential lovers as a paternal replacement figure is obvious and borderline cliched, but then the film knows that we know this and makes it explicit to the point of Walk Hard-style parody.

We then move on to her early days as an actress, during which she gets raped by a studio executive during her first audition. Without comparing physical assault to unkind words, this early experience typifies her world, where the classically trained and intelligent young woman is only valued for her sex appeal and the potential to inspire big-screen lust. Of course, that Marilyn Monroe is an act, a character created for the industry, isn’t exactly a novel concept. Still, the film leans into it with Ana De Armas playing Norma Jeane, playing Marilyn Monroe as someone constantly having to flex a muscle. Under these circumstances, even De Armas’ occasional slip into her natural Cuban accent (a minor quibble) enhances the notion of façade and pageantry. If nothing else, Blonde is a tour-de-force acting treat from its top-billed star.

Bobby Cannavale does a lot with very little playing Joe DiMaggio as a stereotypical abusive spouse who lashes out at his wife’s onscreen sex bomb persona but couches his jealousy in concern for her career. Otherwise, only Nicholson and Adrian Brody (as Arthur Miller) make much of an impression. To the extent that the film puts Monroe through almost constant emotional and psychological punishment, it is very much intended to put its audience through the wringer. Along with systematic sexual violence, an early forced abortion is seen through the pov of Norma Jeane’s vaginal canal. Subtly is for cowards and all. Nonetheless, the sharpest cuts are when our heroine is gaslit, insulted, underestimated and otherwise disrespected. The violence is what’s done to her, but the culture-wide disrespect is why she had to take it.

Blonde is not unlike Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis. Both long biopics are meant to frustrate and depress, even as the filmmaking is alive, inventive and energetic to the point of excitement. Elvis offers a portrait of a young man influenced by and sympathetic to Black culture who became a glorified slave to a greedy white con man. Blonde both lays out the injuries thrust upon its heroine and condemns the notion that such injustices can be retroactively absolved by cultural enlightenment. It reminded me of The Lone Ranger. While (for example) David Yates’ The Legend of Tarzan fashioned a progressive and culturally-aware Tarzan flick, Gore Verbinski rubbed our noses in America’s genocidal past while mocking the very idea of craving a Lone Ranger movie. Blonde also suggests that our cultural blood cannot be washed away so easily.