Blonde
Cert 18 | ★★★★✩

Blonde, the much anticipated Marilyn Monroe biopic, dropped on Netflix only a few days ago and has already set the internet ablaze. Some viewers have called it boring, while others have accused it of being needlessly cruel and exploitative.

Blonde 4

Ana de Armas as Monroe

Adapted from American author Joyce Carol Oates’ best-selling novel of the same name, the film is a fictionalised retelling of the actor’s life from her childhood until her untimely demise aged only 36 in 1962.

Helmed by critically acclaimed Aussie director Andrew Dominik (The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford), Blonde features a stunning performance from Cuban actor Ana de Armas (Knives Out, No Time To Die) as Marilyn, while Adrien Brody is impecable as Jewish playwright Arthur Miller.

While a biopic about the life of the most iconic Hollywood star of all time was always going to amass much interest, it seems people didn’t understand the nature of Dominik’s film.

Much like Oates’ book, Blonde is first and foremost a fictional version of Monroe’s life story and it is with this understanding that it should be approached.

Dominik delivers a grim and rather chilling retelling of the young woman’s rise to stardom all the while highlighting the sexual and physical abuse she endured first at the hands of her troubled mother and later in Hollywood.

But aside from the beatings at the hands of ex- husbands and degrading demands from men in high places — including a particularly ghastly incident in a hotel room featuring JFK — the most important takeaway from Dominik’s film is his heroine’s quest for love and understanding.

With the exception of Miller, the film paints most of the men in the actor’s life as abusive or infantilising patriarchs who treated Marilyn as a plaything they could pass around.
It is this idea of the female Hollywood star as a commodity that forms the crux of this harrowing story.

Far from being exploitative or graphically offensive, Dominik’s film feels more like an art project than a straightforward biopic. The fact that it wasn’t marketed as such is not the filmmaker’s fault, but nor should we blame those who were expecting something completely different.