Blonde

BLONDE (18)

D: Andrew Dominick

Netflix / Plan B (Brad Pitt, Dede Gardner, Jeremy Kleiner, Tracey Landon & Scott Robertson)

US 🇺🇸 2022

166 mins

Drama

W: Andrew Dominick [based on the novel by Joyce Carol Oates]

DP: Chayse Irvin

Ed: Adam Robinson

Mus: Nick Cave & Warren Ellis

Ana de Armas (Marilyn Monroe / Norma Jeane Mortenson), Adrien Brody (Arthur Miller), Bobby Cannavale (Joe DiMaggio), Xavier Samuel (Cass Chaplin), Evan Williams (Edward G. Robinson, Jr.)

Though Ana de Armas headlines this 2022 film as Marilyn Monroe, this is not a biopic about the legendary actress, as it’s based on a grubby, scandalous piece of fan-fiction that had previously made its way to screen as a TV movie.

Writer-director Andrew Dominick tries stylisticly to create a divide between Marilyn Monroe and Norma Jeane Mortenson (her real name) as being two completely different people, switching between black & white photography and colour, sometimes in the same scene.

Regardless of what was intended, Dominick paints the actress as being the most promiscuous hussy in Hollywood, going from relationship to relationship as though they were auditions for her next movie.

It’s an overlong mess of a movie that manages to be quite disgusting to watch, but Ana de Armas gives her all in the lead performance and really needed better material to work off. The overall result is a complete waste of a commanding lead performance. Both Marilyn Monroe and Ana de Armas deserved better.

4/10