Blonde is NOT a biopic. It's a fictionalized story about exploitation. Blonde plays out like a horror story, which is what Norma's life truly was. The film does its job, acting as a hammer to shatter the fantasy people hold onto to this day. Blonde is a dark story told darkly. If told any other way, it would only perpetuate the Monroe fantasy. A part of exploitation is people finding entertainment in the rumors surrounding famous people. A hateful person is not unlike a ravenous fan, after all. It is shocking how people can so completely misunderstand the intent of the film Blonde.
YES!!! THIS COMMENT IS MY EXACT THOUGHTS. Anyone not expecting a full on horror film is being mislead. This film is tense. It's breaking down everything about her into a very potent message. I loved it honestly
Look we get it. Women are constantly sexually exploited just like this every day. Creating a movie solely around that is eeploitative and just shitty. Like a pretentious man shouting "women are being exploited! Look!" Like no shit. We experience it. But why is that ALL the film is? She was such a multi faceted individual. This was a terrible film lost on a beautiful human being.
I think they need to make a separate bio-pic acting awards the Oscars because it's just getting so fucking tiresome that the supposed pinnacle of acting is how well someone can mimic a historical figure.
@CWS and TKP 66-02 I just prefer characters over cariactures. Take Oldman. He was fine as Churchill, nowhere near his best work. But it wins an Oscar because it's Churchill. There's prestige to playing a historical figure and typically better performances get stepped over for those big showy roles. Not the awards really mean much to begin with, but it's an exasperating trend. That's also not to say that all biopics are bad or not great, but it's absolutely an awards bait classic. The last year where an actor didn't win an award for playing a historical figure was in 2016 (there were nominated performances), and before that... 1998. I don't know what you mean by Sherlock and Superman, they're not real people who can mimicked, it's always an adaptation of writtern source material, not quite the same, and those kinds of performances are rarely awards contenders either.
Great point, Razor. When we look back at the great performances, it’s generally the fictional roles that carry the most weight. Example: De Niro in Taxi Driver. Yet when Oscar season rolls around, they tend to give the award to someone who portrays a real person. But as time passes, those performances don’t endure. The fictional ones capture our imagination.
They have been clear that this is fictional, not a biopic. The internet keeps calling it a biopic then getting mad about it being a biopic. Outrage sells.
I disagree with a lot of what you said and I think this is a deep exploration of Marilyn’s psyche. However I’m so happy that you didn’t ignore this film like many others are and that you really tried to understand what the directors intentions were rather than just dismissing the film as disgusting. Many have called the film dishonest while praising films like bohemian rhapsody or spencer because the film usually allows the audience to keep the image of the icon they have in their mind in tact while this film completely obliterates it. It uses myth to explore a deeper emotional truth. People wanted more joy but this is about a woman who killed herself and I think the film is attempting to understand why she made that choice.
Spencer didn’t paint some rosy picture, it was explained to the viewer that this was fiction, and it’s clearly a nightmare meant to show the breakdown in Diana’s psyche at that time. Blonde doesn’t give us this disclaimer, unfortunately. Being that most of America won’t research anything, this movie made sure that Marilyn is seen as a completely different person than she actually was.
It was like watching drama porn. The director was only interested on portraying pain, not exploring a nuanced person or the cycle of abuse. The actress did a good job though, not her fault the movie only wanted to portray morbid pain. I understood the attempt to express emotions in this fever nightmare way, but the fact they showed melodramatic scene after another and another and another crisis... Never letting the actress show strength or wisdom or humor or depth... It made everything feel superficial, like superficial understanding. I agree the director was only interested on Marylin Monroe as a persona... But, using such a complex person to tell a story through only one perspective... It backfires. Something about this film felt like simply being an spectator of trauma, being fascinated by it, but not truly attempting to empathize or understand how it affects a person.
The movie is about her falling into psychosis, and that really reminded me of Black Swan. Just like Natalie Portman's character has to deal with the consequences of disappearing into the Black Swan, Norma Jean has to deal with what she does as Marilyn. It's not really a biopic and because of this, I was okay with it not showing more of Norma Jean growing up.
I thought she nailed Marilyn. Out of everyone who has tried to play her (and the only one that comes to mind is Michelle Williams) Ana got it. Michelle didn't look like her or sound like her at all. Ana's voice was perfect, all I heard was Marilyn. I have watched all of Marilyn's movies and read the books about her, I even listened to the therapy tapes... I think it's sad that everyone is more focused on the nudity aspect than the story itself.
She was great in the rolle. But she was forced to overreact the ultra specialized, submissive Side of the character to such a point it almost ruins her attempt. This was not her fault. The directing and story required her to be a sexually confused and abused character for three hours. It got monotonous.
Hollow? It goes profoundly into the abuse and trauma she went through during her formative years and how her experiences shaped the person she became and tainted all of her relationships... What is shallow about that? In my opinion it was so raw, people arent ready for that kind rawness thrown at their faces yet... It protrayed the person behind the icon, the actual human being... Her referring to her partners as daddy, is simply to portray her need for inconditional love, which no partner can give.. her stepping into the MM character dissociating from herself to actually accept her success
The film is based on a dubiously written fictional account, so it's already flirting with exploitation before it leaves the page. Sadly, Marilyn Monroe has now been slavishly roasted for three hours in a kind of pornography that hopes to wrap itself in a cinematic cloak. But three hours? Even Lars Von Trier would know when, and how, to draw the line. This just draws blood and time from the audience and, let's not forget, Marilyn Monroe. At the two hour mark, the film becomes what it claims to damn. And after three hours, there's not enough water to wash the dirt, bruises and blood away. And I'm not even an avid Marilyn fan. She deserves to rest in a kind of peace that lies outside of cheap paperbacks and salacious celluloid.
this movie was so long, yet it barely scraped the surface of MM’s life. Iwish they did more scenes with Kennedy and Monroe, along with her early life/40s era.
My problem with biopics is that you can't really distill a person's life in a biopic, and biopics of famous musicians and actors usually are horrible. That said: Bob Fosse's "Lenny" about Lenny Bruce is incredible, "Ed Wood" is a good one, "What's Love Got To Do With It" is a good one......so there are definite exceptions. "The Misfits" is all one needs to understand Marilyn Monroe, it's not that complicated. Pretty embarrassing that they made lame movies about Elvis and Marilyn IN THE SAME YEAR.....further evidence of Hollywood's dearth of creative ideas.
Most bio pics are boring. Peter Sellers admitted he was an extraordinary boring person & he only became interesting when he was performing. Same with the Doors- to make it more audacious, they made Jim Morrison a crazy person. His band mates said he wasn't the person they saw in iver Stones movie. In Bohemian Rhapsody the way the band met Freddy Mercury was fictional. Sadly- are favorite performers are most interesting when they perform. They live through movies, music, & sports, which I prefer.
This is not a biopic. Is fiction and Dominik commits to that because all the aesthetics is nightmare inducing and even lynchian. Both Elvis and Blonde are two good examples of how americans view themselves through their mythologies and it’s not pretty.
This movie was not it. The Movie is an insult to Marilyn What they did to her is disgusting. 3 hours of my life I will never get back. What a horrible movie. (The director openly admitted that he never watched any of Marilyn's films, further proof that this movie was only made to cash in on a Hollywood Starlet.) They continue to exploit and sexualize a dead person with made up things, as if she wasn't exploited and sexualized enough. As a massive fan this was a shot to the heart, worse than any book, documentary or biopic i have seen
An issue I have with many reviews I have viewed is that the essence of the times were very much missed in those critiques. A need for an escape from the continuation of the horrors of WWII into the potential end of life on earth, created a demand for oversized, wonderful icons that couldn’t be dismissed. This was Monroe, Elvis, then The Beatles.
If you approach it as horror you will fall asleep in the middle of it since it is so boring! It has no story just random shots of Ana in Marilyn's makeup doing photoshoots and her being naked. This movie fails in every possible way. It is made by an arrogant director on his ego trip delusions of how he is making some kind of masterpiece. It is amateur, pretentious, explotative for the sake of exploitation and, again, boring.
I totally get it and see why many gave it a low score. However going into it I already knew that this was not meant to be a "by-the-numbers" biopic or docudrama. There have been at least a dozen or more of those about Monroe already, in addition to many documentaries. This was an art house character study inside the mind of Norma Jeane. The famous scenes from her films and life were peppered in to preserve a timeline, but it was not meant to be historic or a chronicle per se. As a character study (or actually an inner psychological identity struggle) it succeeded. And although many of the scenes were imagined or not fact (JFK rape, abortions, Chaplin/Robinson threesome, etc.), they are also not proven untrue either (in other words, knowing how her life was going they could have happened, so it wasn't like they were out of sync with the story). Note that they never mention Joe Dimaggio, Arthur Miller or JFK by name. They are simply known as the "the ex-athlete", "the playwright" and "the President" (even in the credits). I was a bit surprised however that there was no glimpse of the Happy Birthday, Mr. President scene & dress, or the issues on set with her final films "The Misfit" (Gable's last) and "Something's Got To Give" (Monroe's last).However the actor portraying "the President" is the same one to portray JFK in the Natalie Portman movie "Jackie".
@@marya5925 i think people are falling to realise this film is based on a book. that not to redirect blame but more that book was well rated and allot of people who know that have said its a decent interpretation. i haven't watched or read the book but its at least sth people should know.
Honestly, it sounds like you would have preferred watching one of the thousands of Marilyn documentaries that exist out there. I thought the director had a very specific angle that he wanted to explore on the nature of mega-fame. I agree with Mark Kermode, who described this film as a horror movie. "Blonde" has zero interest in exploring the over-familiar territory of Marilyn Monroe. That has been done to death (pun intended). This is absolutely not a biopic. It is a psychedelic drug fueled nightmare of depression and loneliness that can accompany being the most famous and iconic face of all time.
An interesting perspective as always. Definitely liked this a lot more than you but can certainly understand you're criticisms of things being a bit too on the nose and Monroe being a bit too much of a passive presence at times. Famed critic Mark Kermode said that this film is best approached as a brutal and upsetting horror film rather than a biopic and I would agree. As a Repulsion-esque psychological horror film about a woman's life becoming absolutely crushed by the weight people are putting onto her as a icon and famous celebrity I found it to be a an extremely affecting experience.
FOR THOSE CRITICIZING: I totally get it and see why many gave it a low score. However going into it I already knew that this was not meant to be a "by-the-numbers" biopic or docudrama. There have been at least a dozen or more of those about Monroe already, in addition to many documentaries. This was an art house character study inside the mind of Norma Jeane. The famous scenes from her films and life were peppered in to preserve a timeline, but it was not meant to be historic or a chronicle per se. As a character study (or actually an inner psychological identity struggle) it succeeded. And although many of the scenes were imagined or not fact (JFK rape, abortions, Chaplin/Robinson threesome, etc.), they are also not proven untrue either (in other words, knowing how her life was going they could have happened, so it wasn't like they were out of sync with the story). Note that they never mention Joe Dimaggio, Arthur Miller or JFK by name. They are simply known as the "the ex-athlete", "the playwright" and "the President" (even in the credits). I was a bit surprised however that there was no glimpse of the Happy Birthday, Mr. President scene & dress, or the issues on set with her final films "The Misfit" (Gable's last) and "Something's Got To Give" (Monroe's last).However the actor portraying "the President" is the same one to portray JFK in the Natalie Portman movie "Jackie".
The phone ringing constantly was the other thing I couldn’t deal with. The other, other thing I didn’t like was the thruple relationship. That was inaccurate and completely unnecessary… it only built the moment at the end when the true author was revealed. Ana was absolutely brilliant!
@@evar1104 but it was dumb to adapt this book for that very reason, because it creates false histories that a lot of people will believe on the surface without digging deeper. There was no need to add speculation when there were plenty of facts known about her life. It's very much like the film JFK, and how Oliver Stone filmed dozens of conspiracy theories and if you're young and impressionable that will be your only source
@@annadasilva6342 omg thank you I didn’t catch it. It did, I can’t stand it personally around the house or even reverse beeping at the job. It’s a whole thing
Fair review, I was also torn on this film, visually stunning, Ana de Armas is incredible, cinematography outstanding, some disturbing scenes and strange takes on historical events.
Appreciate your review. What's lost on the audience is the source material, Oates' book, is FAN FICTION, made up things that didn't happen, like she miscarried, didn't have abortion, for example. Dominik chose to funnel ready made audience through the haunted house of Marilyn's fictionalized tragedies and exploitations, and ignored her successes; her genius, her activism, her standing up for herself by being one of the first women to create her own prod co, to name a few fully fleshed achievements. If you read twitter, 100k so far @ 10/1 pm, most could not finish it. For that, it's the finish of Dom as a director, and Brad Pitt will suffer as well. We the audience feed them both... Our trust in them, is gone for good.
I love how you absolutely know the movie is based off of a fictional take on the women's life but still complain that a bunch of stuff about her REAL LIFE isn't in it...and imply that the director messed up because of it. if Andrew wasn't a man, I guarantee y'all wouldn't be hating this movie this hard.
i got in SUCH trouble for openly declaring that i adored this film. it made me cry quite hard and that's pretty rare for a number of films, but it absolutely related to so many occurrences of assault / abuse but also speaking as someone who has been diagnosed (independently, three times) with narcissistic personality disorder - it hit very hard, and then being raked over the coals for saying that it did something for me was a very odd experience. i really appreciate your view on this and it's actually been the most balanced that i've encountered so far. i continue to love this film, but i also appreciate that it's fairly exploitative over a figure that so few people understand and/or ever have a reliable insight into. i also continue to hope that my love of this film doesn't hurt others.
Perfectly said, just watched it myself and absolutely loved Ana De Armas' portrayal and acting chops, but the movie itself felt very disjointed and almost a pity party movie. Marilyn's life was tragic yes, but she was clearly a very smart businesswoman and knew what she was doing. I wished the film showcased more of her comedy, her funny side, and of course her business side.
Didn’t hate it , but found it hard to love has a very David lynch dreamlike quality to it which isn’t for everyone but I personally didn’t mind . It looks absolutely stunning and I adored the film’s score I think I’d probably give it like a 6.5 out of 10
"It's like you gave birth to yourself" was an entirely appropriate line, given the framework of the character who says it. It also has an interesting dash of self awareness while being played very sincere, which kind of makes it immune to any criticism. It's also one of those lines that has en eternal truthfulness to it, even though it may feel heavy handed in the moment.
I agree with most of this. I respect the hell out of what Dominik was going for, but a lot of it just felt way too on the nose. That said, I guess I’ll differ from you and say that I liked the film. And I think it’s because I so respect what he’s trying to do, and I think a lot of it works. The tagline for the film is “watched by all, seen by none”. And I think a lot of people went into this movie expecting that quote to finish with, “until now” and I love that Dominik chooses not to do that. There’s no way we can understand this person, so why pretend? Instead focusing on her pure trauma, juxtaposed with the cult of celebrity demonically possessing the true self, I think is a really good choice, and I think a lot of the brutality comes through despite the on the nose execution that at times borders on parody. Not the best film of the year, and not the worst. But maybe the most bold and most notable.
I didn’t think the cult of celebrity thing was a theme in this movie. Movie’s nearly 3 hours, and her actual career in modeling and movies adds up to what? 20 minutes, maybe. The CGI fetus got more lines than Tony Curtis and Billy Wilder. This felt more like The Passion of the Christ: Hollywood edition.
You explained it perfectly! Everyone and I mean everyone is trashing on it calling it an exploitation movie when they don’t realise it’s not a biopic, it’s based on the book of the same title. This will go down as one of history’s most misunderstood masterpieces.
I haven't yet tackled Joyce Carol Oates' long novel which is the actual source material, which is pertinent when discussing how to approach this material. I'm familiar with Oates' other works and she has a tendency to approach subjects from a psychological perspective. Before, she took inspiration from real life events, and used fiction to dissect them in her own way. "Blonde", however, wasn't written that way. Instead of creating a fictional parallel to the blonde bombshell archetype it became a fantastical look at Marilyn Monroe as the figure. It's similar to Don DeLillo's "Libra" and its take on the life of Lee Harvey Oswald. There was a lot of psychological speculation. I felt that this film adaptation condensed a lot of those elements down into a frantic three hours. There have been many films about Monroe, some exploring the abuse she endured in the foster care system in her youth, but this film decided to take on one of those aspects of her life and experiences as a thread regarding what her mentality and emotional state was like trapped in that sphere. I do remember a TV miniseries adaptation of the novel that came out years ago which should get attention again as a polarized take on the novel.
I think the zombie biopic opinion is a point of view I haven't heard before. I don't mind them as a genre. The movie is brutal and visceral. Requiem for a Dream with Marilyn. She probably was traumatised, exploited and controlled. Look at Brittany Spears.
Andrew Dominik’s Blonde revels in Marilyn Monroe’s misery If you want to sit through two hours and 46 minutes of agony and abuse!! F- and I'm being KIND!!!!🤑
I agree with so much of what you said, but I think I enjoyed it. I kind of thought of it as taking the psychological and making it the literal in a way that opened up the audience into her p.o.v. some of the execution was sloppy and not well connected, but like you said, I completely admire the-lack of a better word-balls for trying to explore the myth. Personally I’m kind of sick of trying to expose the real Marilyn simply because it’s impossible, but I think exposing the psyche of the myth and icon of MARILYN is far more interesting. Artistically stunning, but definitely a 6/10 movie as a collective
Is there supposed to be a rhyme or reason to the changing frame rate / aspect ratio / color grading? For the life of me I could not discern a pattern to it. Was it just a device to further destabilize us? I don't think that's enough of a reason to justify those aesthetic choices...
It reminded me a lot of Spencer with Kirsten Stweard, I felt like I was watching a horror movie, like a nightmare. I don't understand how anyone can see this movie and think it is trying to be an accurate bio pic. It was just to long and just to sad...
@@blakemeads9225 I don't really get everyone saying that. From what we have learned from #Metoo and how powerful men treat women. I think this movie was right to go down the kinda Horror shocking route. Kinda like how Spencer when that route.
This film is a masterpiece. It’s tackles the essential question of Monroe’s life, why did she kill herself? Why, if as people assume she had it all was she dead in her thirties? The film suggests a possible explanation. It also explains our participation in creating and destroying her. Marylin was a helpless lamb. Elia Kazan said she wasn’t stupid, but she was incredibly gullible. “She believed in fairytales but no one ever told her to watch out for the ogres under the bridge. She was always childlike.” -Kazan They captured all of that in a brilliantly beautifully tragic way. Monroe is an enigma. We know virtually nothing about her. The one thing you’ll notice about those who knew her and spoke of her was the lack of sympathy or sadness at the loss of their “friend.” I don’t think I’ve seen anyone shed a tear over her. Hers is a truly tragic, tragic, story. There isn’t anything else.
Idk if it's just me being incredibly desensitized to a lot of shit, but almost every NC-17 film I've seen has been mostly tame to me. Even Cronenberg's Crash doesn't feel any more extreme than the average R rated movie. Irreversible is probably the only film I've seen that warrants an NC-17 rating simply because the rape scene lasts so long and seems so real.
The only good part of the film was the gal who played Marilyn. Rest of the acting was great, the casting was good. Unfortunately, the story was not well told. Actually, horribly told. Monroe fans should stay clear of this turd. Thumbs down.
I just hear her agents say "think; award winning" when discussing being topless and doing this film in general. They did release it in theaters so they could be in the running.
An unnamed famous baseball player, a movie mogul named Mr. Z, only the figures that are portrayed sympathetically rate a name in this one. It feels like a legal department wringing their hands over the whole movie. And Marilyn's first husband, Doherty, doesn't even rate a mention. Does that mean that she didn't call him daddy? I often think of Doherty inviting his bench-mate and friend at Lockheed, Robert Mitchum, over to dinner during the war. It would have been nice to see them interact as the friends they were during the war and then make a movie together later--The River of No Return. Otto Preminger yelling at her would have added to the movie as well--but then I guess he would have become Mr. P. I wonder about the complicity of Joyce Carol Oates in this travesty, not having read the novel. The stupid device of Chaplin Jr. writing letters as her father I suspect is from the novel.
I loved the film. It showed The actresses incredible skills at not only being MM - but more importantly Norma Jean. This was never meant to be an easy watch. Norma Jean suffers so much abuse at the hands of her mother - who never wanted her. And total abandonment from her father - she created the icon of MM. that’s what makes her so phenomenal to me. I would love a similar portrayal of Cary Grant. He said beautifully when asked what it was like to be him, ‘ I’m Archibald Leach - I would love to be as handsome, debonair and as attractive as Cary Grant - wouldn’t you?? ‘. He was also incredibly abused as a child. Let’s make a real film about him too.
Hey, great review. Although you didn't like the film, I can see you viewed it with an open mind and gave it considerable thought. I agree that biopics are lame, and Blonde is most definitely not lame in the same way, you gotta admit. I saw a reviewer claiming Marilyn lacked agency in the film. You make a similar point, stating that she must have stepped on a few necks to gain such fame. I don't disagree with your point, but to claim her character lacks agency is to be blind to how art works. In art, often times what isn't shown reveals more than what is shown: the fact is that Marilyn, with all her fame and fortune, has greater agency than just about any female character ever depicted on the screen. She could have quit her job at the height of her success and lived comfortably without ever working another day in her life again. And yet she didn't... That much is true, and Dominik's film never denies this truth. Instead the movie creates an enormous emptiness to be occupied by the viewer. These strong reactions the film is evoking represent the audience wrestling in that emptiness. No spoon-feeding here. Some people are gonna starve! I think the film is spectacular, but I could be wrong, however, I know I'm not wrong when I say Domink's artistic choices are gutsy as all hell.
Bleak. Hollow. Soulless. A difficult film to sit through. Its morbid tone leaves you feeling uneasy with graphic sexual violence and abusive nature. Marilyn Monroe’s story needed to be told with heart and understanding of who this woman was during her time on and off camera. Marilyn is represented as a shadow figure against bright lights and glitter, without a trace of her real struggle to find redemption as a human with a troubled past. It’s a missed opportunity to have made a great film from this extraordinary life.
I want to just dismiss it as all style no substance, but admittedly I was pretty effected by the last act (even if it was drawn out) and a couple of montage sequences. I think the sequence when she marries Arthur and they’re running on the beach with the score playing is one of the best scenes of 2022.
A film caring more about transmitting certain undefineable feelings through images doesn't mean it's style over substance. The substance is within the form and because there's no definitive meaning, there's enough room for us to fill it up with our own thoughts and ideas.
Agree with you I don’t think the movie is deserving of the hysteria that the Twitter trolls are throwing its way, although it does go a little too far in one scene towards the end of the film. It’s definitely more of a European art house film than a traditional ‘Biopic’ It looks stunning and Ana De Armas should definitely get an Oscar Nomination for her performance as she really does carry the film. I just remember wishing there was more of a script for her to play with because for a nearly three hour film it doesn’t have enough dialogue. I kinda liked the idea of ‘Marilyn Monroe’ as being a creation, a separate persona to Norma Jeane. A persona that both gives her a sense of empowerment but by the end of the film is a prison she can’t escape. But the film never delves deeper into that beyond visuals and atmosphere. I felt some of the relationships she had in the film are left half way through without being resolved and that really adds to the emotional distance that you speak of, especially in the 3rd act. And the dialogue is way too on the nose. So in summary Ana De Armas is brilliant, and the Cinematography is stunning but it feels more style over substance.
There was a TV movie called “Norma Jean & Marilyn” that explored precisely that separate creation idea. Indeed, Norma Jean and Marilyn were played by two separate actresses- Ashley Judd and Mira Sorvino. Needless to say, it was yet another artistically failed biopic.
An amazing movie !! Ana's performance is nothing short of amazing and Oscar-worthy! It's not super accurate, but again, it's not a documentary and is't not called Marilyn Monroe, but Blonde. It's show how strong and smart she was, how did she survived so many traumas, which now days, specially young generation have no clue, that this could even happen to someone. People whom never suffer, whom had a hard life, who never survived a serious life trauma, will not like and understand this movie. They are like a snowflakes, making up imaginary problems, which hurt their super fragile feelings. I pity them for their childish view of the world.
I'd take your opinion on the need to suffer before understanding suffering much more seriously if you learned the proper use of whom v who. I get the feeling English isn't your 1st language. Simple is better. Using words like snowflakes in regards to people who disagree with you is childish and un-serious. It makes you look foolish.
I think the same way you did about the film, Im a big Ana de Armas fan, and even though she is great in the film, it ended up portying this victim who got toss arround everywhere specially by men, which must to have been the norm back ln those days, I would have liked to see a more strong female character even if that ment adding a bit of fiction to the film, first time on this channel and I like your critique I'm going to keep comming back.
Marilyn Monroe was a confection! Norma Jean is who you are talking about and who you keep referring to as Marilyn. As the character constantly reminds us in the movie. Which is a point of the movie. It’s about exploitation, of a woman, in this case, and the damming overall business model of Hollywood. And we’ve seen this play out in real life with the Weinstein saga promoting the Me too movement. This movie would not have been made before these events.
Ana blew this performance out of the park & I personally enjoyed this film & the direction it took. Perhaps people just hate seeing such an icon be so raw & real in an adaptation of what Marilyn may have felt & gone through.
It is important to note that Blonde is not a straight biography but is based on a novel by Joyce Carol Oates. The novel is based on Monroe's life but is fiction and so is the movie.
After watching the film today and learning how much Marilyn suffered, even though this is based on a book that may be 70% fiction, not goin to lie tho some scenes were a little disturbing and I hope they didn’t have an affect on Ana’s mental health. Honestly it was amazing and haunting, Ana De Armas deserves all the awards coming to her after playing this role.
I appreciate the art/cinematography and yup it kinda remind me of fever dream, BUT out of all the books that has been written about Marilyn they decided to get inspired from that “male fantasy book” 😬 I was very disappointed honestly
I agree with a lot of the comments here. It's definitely not a biopic: it's a psychedelic fever dream for sure. Rather it's more of a nightmare and an incredible depiction of Borderline Personality Disorder. I think it knows exactly what it's about and it's cruelly realistic and as you said beautifully filmed. I thought it was amazing and devastating.
I respect your opinion. I always do. But the gold dust slipping through your fingers and shimmering is the essence of her and so goes the movie about her. Your insights I'm fine with but every other reviewer that didn't like it, well I think we are in a very bad way right now as a society where they can't even appreciate a very good film and understand what it means as we traded our interpreting art and storytelling skills for reactionary attention getting nonsense. Alot of these reviews are hey look what I think. What can I say to look like I am a good person, or to get people to look at my comment or my video. Should I choose shock value, outrage or just sheer superiority even if I really don't know anything about storytelling or filmmaking or art. The Netflix explanation is an almost perfect mindset to adopt before you watch it. It says it a fictional telling into her inner life (not her social world) and the struggles she most likely was going through. As if inside her mind. Who cares what she had to eat or the relationships that she had. Most biopics are laughable parodies of themselves. Think Walk Hard. But not this one. And people complaining about it not being accurate. I can't even.
ana is an amazing, beautiful, cute and humble woman. she is what every woman should be like! feminine, elegant and strong. people should leave her alone and stop destroying her! disgusting humanity
Ana Armas is one of the greatest actors of her generation, and her playing Marylin Monroe seems like a perfect choice. Too bad the movie didn't live up with it.
Very good analysis and review of the movie! This channel absolutely deservers more views for the quality of review it provides. If you are willing to hear some youtube advice, I would suggest you put some more effort into the thumbnail as an actionable part of the UA-cam equation for success. Something a bit more professional like the title of the movie and some cool background with you in the corner, instead of this generic shot of you next to your bookcase in every video for the past 10 years. If you don't care at all, that's fine, keep up the good work :)
I'd rather watch a documentary of a historic figure. Biopics are as much about the actor playing the famous person. "Man of a Thousand Faces" is as well known as a James Cagney movie as the bio of Lon Chaney.
Great review! Seem no one enjoyed watching this movie. I might skip it. Too bad cause I loved "Killing them Softly" (good scenes in there) and "the Assassination of jj" (great cinematography) 😊✌🏼
My main problem with this movie was the aspect ratio. I kept thinking, dude, choose one and stick with it! it was really distracting for no real reason. I agree with your review, the movie is beautiful looking but misguided. Andrew Dominic is a good director but the wrong guy for this project. This would have worked far better if David Lynch had directed it - if you’re going to go with a surreal horror take on Monroe’s life then Lynch is your guy.
It was ‘GAW’ pervy-fap-art. Overindulges in MM’s ‘frailty’ and ‘helplessness’. It undermines her as a person, despite it being exploitive none of it seems serviceable or necessary. It was like The Great Gatsby and Showgirls has a biopic cringe baby.
The whole movie was a big absolution for all the mistakes which Marilyn Monroe commit. She was drugged by other, she drank because the life was so bad to her, she behaved as a diva because she didn't wanted to be Marilyn so for and so on. But after watching the movie I still don't know her. So, after all it seems that movie is not about her but more the hard life of a female Hollywood star. Also I did not get the meaning of the endless naked scenes with her. I am not complaing about the pictures itself. Ana de Armas is a beautiful woman. She looks pretty. I liked to watch her. But I felt it had no actual meaning to the story. Where the movie really did not convinced me, were the scenes who they tried to show us the real Norma Jeane. These scenes were way too artificially. In conclusion, not a good movie, but by Netflix-Standards also not the worsed ;)
This movie was fantastic. Ana did such an incredible job. The cinematography and editing was phenomenal. Would've definitely been one of the people giving a standing ovation in Venice.
It felt like I was stuck in a room with someone who just wouldn’t stop crying for 3 hours
Blonde is NOT a biopic. It's a fictionalized story about exploitation. Blonde plays out like a horror story, which is what Norma's life truly was. The film does its job, acting as a hammer to shatter the fantasy people hold onto to this day. Blonde is a dark story told darkly. If told any other way, it would only perpetuate the Monroe fantasy. A part of exploitation is people finding entertainment in the rumors surrounding famous people. A hateful person is not unlike a ravenous fan, after all. It is shocking how people can so completely misunderstand the intent of the film Blonde.
YES!!! THIS COMMENT IS MY EXACT THOUGHTS. Anyone not expecting a full on horror film is being mislead. This film is tense. It's breaking down everything about her into a very potent message. I loved it honestly
So happy some in these comments actually understand this film and its efforts.
Too bad it was so boring and pretentious
Look we get it. Women are constantly sexually exploited just like this every day. Creating a movie solely around that is eeploitative and just shitty. Like a pretentious man shouting "women are being exploited! Look!" Like no shit. We experience it. But why is that ALL the film is? She was such a multi faceted individual. This was a terrible film lost on a beautiful human being.
I think the movie perpetuates mythical thinking.
Monroe here is almost some sort of fantastical avatar of beauty and sexuality.
I think they need to make a separate bio-pic acting awards the Oscars because it's just getting so fucking tiresome that the supposed pinnacle of acting is how well someone can mimic a historical figure.
unpopular opinion.
I agree
@CWS and TKP 66-02 I just prefer characters over cariactures. Take Oldman. He was fine as Churchill, nowhere near his best work. But it wins an Oscar because it's Churchill. There's prestige to playing a historical figure and typically better performances get stepped over for those big showy roles. Not the awards really mean much to begin with, but it's an exasperating trend. That's also not to say that all biopics are bad or not great, but it's absolutely an awards bait classic.
The last year where an actor didn't win an award for playing a historical figure was in 2016 (there were nominated performances), and before that... 1998. I don't know what you mean by Sherlock and Superman, they're not real people who can mimicked, it's always an adaptation of writtern source material, not quite the same, and those kinds of performances are rarely awards contenders either.
Great point, Razor. When we look back at the great performances, it’s generally the fictional roles that carry the most weight. Example: De Niro in Taxi Driver. Yet when Oscar season rolls around, they tend to give the award to someone who portrays a real person. But as time passes, those performances don’t endure. The fictional ones capture our imagination.
Any great performance deserves recognition but yes, Oscar bait gets more attention.
The director should have put a disclaimer at the beginning. It’s disgusting that it’s being sold as a biopic when it’s NOT.
They have been clear that this is fictional, not a biopic. The internet keeps calling it a biopic then getting mad about it being a biopic. Outrage sells.
Blame Netflix
I disagree with a lot of what you said and I think this is a deep exploration of Marilyn’s psyche. However I’m so happy that you didn’t ignore this film like many others are and that you really tried to understand what the directors intentions were rather than just dismissing the film as disgusting. Many have called the film dishonest while praising films like bohemian rhapsody or spencer because the film usually allows the audience to keep the image of the icon they have in their mind in tact while this film completely obliterates it. It uses myth to explore a deeper emotional truth. People wanted more joy but this is about a woman who killed herself and I think the film is attempting to understand why she made that choice.
Spencer didn’t paint some rosy picture, it was explained to the viewer that this was fiction, and it’s clearly a nightmare meant to show the breakdown in Diana’s psyche at that time. Blonde doesn’t give us this disclaimer, unfortunately. Being that most of America won’t research anything, this movie made sure that Marilyn is seen as a completely different person than she actually was.
Bohemian Rhapsody isn't a good movie. It's not even a good bio-pic.
It was like watching drama porn. The director was only interested on portraying pain, not exploring a nuanced person or the cycle of abuse. The actress did a good job though, not her fault the movie only wanted to portray morbid pain. I understood the attempt to express emotions in this fever nightmare way, but the fact they showed melodramatic scene after another and another and another crisis... Never letting the actress show strength or wisdom or humor or depth... It made everything feel superficial, like superficial understanding. I agree the director was only interested on Marylin Monroe as a persona... But, using such a complex person to tell a story through only one perspective... It backfires. Something about this film felt like simply being an spectator of trauma, being fascinated by it, but not truly attempting to empathize or understand how it affects a person.
The movie is about her falling into psychosis, and that really reminded me of Black Swan. Just like Natalie Portman's character has to deal with the consequences of disappearing into the Black Swan, Norma Jean has to deal with what she does as Marilyn. It's not really a biopic and because of this, I was okay with it not showing more of Norma Jean growing up.
You’re phenomenal ❤ very insightful and lean diagnosis of movies, efficient with words and to the point! Harmony in the purest sense!
I thought she nailed Marilyn. Out of everyone who has tried to play her (and the only one that comes to mind is Michelle Williams) Ana got it. Michelle didn't look like her or sound like her at all. Ana's voice was perfect, all I heard was Marilyn. I have watched all of Marilyn's movies and read the books about her, I even listened to the therapy tapes... I think it's sad that everyone is more focused on the nudity aspect than the story itself.
the actress who played Marilyn's mother on this kind of looked like Michelle Williams, strange
She was great in the rolle. But she was forced to overreact the ultra specialized, submissive Side of the character to such a point it almost ruins her attempt. This was not her fault. The directing and story required her to be a sexually confused and abused character for three hours. It got monotonous.
Hollow? It goes profoundly into the abuse and trauma she went through during her formative years and how her experiences shaped the person she became and tainted all of her relationships... What is shallow about that? In my opinion it was so raw, people arent ready for that kind rawness thrown at their faces yet... It protrayed the person behind the icon, the actual human being... Her referring to her partners as daddy, is simply to portray her need for inconditional love, which no partner can give.. her stepping into the MM character dissociating from herself to actually accept her success
The film is based on a dubiously written fictional account, so it's already flirting with exploitation before it leaves the page. Sadly, Marilyn Monroe has now been slavishly roasted for three hours in a kind of pornography that hopes to wrap itself in a cinematic cloak. But three hours? Even Lars Von Trier would know when, and how, to draw the line. This just draws blood and time from the audience and, let's not forget, Marilyn Monroe. At the two hour mark, the film becomes what it claims to damn. And after three hours, there's not enough water to wash the dirt, bruises and blood away. And I'm not even an avid Marilyn fan. She deserves to rest in a kind of peace that lies outside of cheap paperbacks and salacious celluloid.
It was boring. It became tired quickly. POS!
this movie was so long, yet it barely scraped the surface of MM’s life. Iwish they did more scenes with Kennedy and Monroe, along with her early life/40s era.
After I watched the film, I came straight here 💯. I can always depend on deep focus lens for an insightful review!
My problem with biopics is that you can't really distill a person's life in a biopic, and biopics of famous musicians and actors usually are horrible. That said: Bob Fosse's "Lenny" about Lenny Bruce is incredible, "Ed Wood" is a good one, "What's Love Got To Do With It" is a good one......so there are definite exceptions. "The Misfits" is all one needs to understand Marilyn Monroe, it's not that complicated. Pretty embarrassing that they made lame movies about Elvis and Marilyn IN THE SAME YEAR.....further evidence of Hollywood's dearth of creative ideas.
Love and Mercy is also good imo.
@@juanpablog527 Love And Mercy IS good, you're right. Like I said, there are rare exceptions.
Most bio pics are boring. Peter Sellers admitted he was an extraordinary boring person & he only became interesting when he was performing. Same with the Doors- to make it more audacious, they made Jim Morrison a crazy person. His band mates said he wasn't the person they saw in iver Stones movie. In Bohemian Rhapsody the way the band met Freddy Mercury was fictional. Sadly- are favorite performers are most interesting when they perform. They live through movies, music, & sports, which I prefer.
@@josephdarkhelmet9494 Perfect examples of crap. The scene in The Doors that irks me the most is how they portrayed Nico. Total agreement.
This is not a biopic. Is fiction and Dominik commits to that because all the aesthetics is nightmare inducing and even lynchian. Both Elvis and Blonde are two good examples of how americans view themselves through their mythologies and it’s not pretty.
This movie was not it. The Movie is an insult to Marilyn What they did to her is disgusting. 3 hours of my life I will never get back. What a horrible movie. (The director openly admitted that he never watched any of Marilyn's films, further proof that this movie was only made to cash in on a Hollywood Starlet.) They continue to exploit and sexualize a dead person with made up things, as if she wasn't exploited and sexualized enough. As a massive fan this was a shot to the heart, worse than any book, documentary or biopic i have seen
An issue I have with many reviews I have viewed is that the essence of the times were very much missed in those critiques. A need for an escape from the continuation of the horrors of WWII into the potential end of life on earth, created a demand for oversized, wonderful icons that couldn’t be dismissed. This was Monroe, Elvis, then The Beatles.
I've heard that if you go into this expecting a biopic, you'll be let down. That it's more a horror movie. I'm looking forward to it.
If you approach it as horror you will fall asleep in the middle of it since it is so boring! It has no story just random shots of Ana in Marilyn's makeup doing photoshoots and her being naked. This movie fails in every possible way. It is made by an arrogant director on his ego trip delusions of how he is making some kind of masterpiece. It is amateur, pretentious, explotative for the sake of exploitation and, again, boring.
@@marya5925 Agree with every word. Some people should not be allowed to direct movies. Especially biopics!
I totally get it and see why many gave it a low score. However going into it I already knew that this was not meant to be a "by-the-numbers" biopic or docudrama. There have been at least a dozen or more of those about Monroe already, in addition to many documentaries. This was an art house character study inside the mind of Norma Jeane. The famous scenes from her films and life were peppered in to preserve a timeline, but it was not meant to be historic or a chronicle per se. As a character study (or actually an inner psychological identity struggle) it succeeded. And although many of the scenes were imagined or not fact (JFK rape, abortions, Chaplin/Robinson threesome, etc.), they are also not proven untrue either (in other words, knowing how her life was going they could have happened, so it wasn't like they were out of sync with the story). Note that they never mention Joe Dimaggio, Arthur Miller or JFK by name. They are simply known as the "the ex-athlete", "the playwright" and "the President" (even in the credits). I was a bit surprised however that there was no glimpse of the Happy Birthday, Mr. President scene & dress, or the issues on set with her final films "The Misfit" (Gable's last) and "Something's Got To Give" (Monroe's last).However the actor portraying "the President" is the same one to portray JFK in the Natalie Portman movie "Jackie".
more of a tragedy
@@marya5925 i think people are falling to realise this film is based on a book. that not to redirect blame but more that book was well rated and allot of people who know that have said its a decent interpretation. i haven't watched or read the book but its at least sth people should know.
Honestly, it sounds like you would have preferred watching one of the thousands of Marilyn documentaries that exist out there. I thought the director had a very specific angle that he wanted to explore on the nature of mega-fame. I agree with Mark Kermode, who described this film as a horror movie. "Blonde" has zero interest in exploring the over-familiar territory of Marilyn Monroe. That has been done to death (pun intended). This is absolutely not a biopic. It is a psychedelic drug fueled nightmare of depression and loneliness that can accompany being the most famous and iconic face of all time.
I went right to Mark's review after watching this.
An interesting perspective as always. Definitely liked this a lot more than you but can certainly understand you're criticisms of things being a bit too on the nose and Monroe being a bit too much of a passive presence at times.
Famed critic Mark Kermode said that this film is best approached as a brutal and upsetting horror film rather than a biopic and I would agree. As a Repulsion-esque psychological horror film about a woman's life becoming absolutely crushed by the weight people are putting onto her as a icon and famous celebrity I found it to be a an extremely affecting experience.
you picked up on it, the novel is super surrealist and uses her as a trope. so i enjoyed the surrealist and dreamy quality of it
FOR THOSE CRITICIZING: I totally get it and see why many gave it a low score. However going into it I already knew that this was not meant to be a "by-the-numbers" biopic or docudrama. There have been at least a dozen or more of those about Monroe already, in addition to many documentaries. This was an art house character study inside the mind of Norma Jeane. The famous scenes from her films and life were peppered in to preserve a timeline, but it was not meant to be historic or a chronicle per se. As a character study (or actually an inner psychological identity struggle) it succeeded. And although many of the scenes were imagined or not fact (JFK rape, abortions, Chaplin/Robinson threesome, etc.), they are also not proven untrue either (in other words, knowing how her life was going they could have happened, so it wasn't like they were out of sync with the story). Note that they never mention Joe Dimaggio, Arthur Miller or JFK by name. They are simply known as the "the ex-athlete", "the playwright" and "the President" (even in the credits). I was a bit surprised however that there was no glimpse of the Happy Birthday, Mr. President scene & dress, or the issues on set with her final films "The Misfit" (Gable's last) and "Something's Got To Give" (Monroe's last).However the actor portraying "the President" is the same one to portray JFK in the Natalie Portman movie "Jackie".
The phone ringing constantly was the other thing I couldn’t deal with. The other, other thing I didn’t like was the thruple relationship. That was inaccurate and completely unnecessary… it only built the moment at the end when the true author was revealed. Ana was absolutely brilliant!
was real Mulholland Drive-esque.
It's not inaccurate because it's in the novel. Blonde is not a biopic, it's speculative fiction, which is what so many people are getting wrong.
@@evar1104 but it was dumb to adapt this book for that very reason, because it creates false histories that a lot of people will believe on the surface without digging deeper. There was no need to add speculation when there were plenty of facts known about her life. It's very much like the film JFK, and how Oliver Stone filmed dozens of conspiracy theories and if you're young and impressionable that will be your only source
The phone ringing constantly is supposed to drive you nuts, imagine never having a moment to yourself because everyone thinks they own you.
@@annadasilva6342 omg thank you I didn’t catch it. It did, I can’t stand it personally around the house or even reverse beeping at the job. It’s a whole thing
Fair review, I was also torn on this film, visually stunning, Ana de Armas is incredible, cinematography outstanding, some disturbing scenes and strange takes on historical events.
Appreciate your review. What's lost on the audience is the source material, Oates' book, is FAN FICTION, made up things that didn't happen, like she miscarried, didn't have abortion, for example. Dominik chose to funnel ready made audience through the haunted house of Marilyn's fictionalized tragedies and exploitations, and ignored her successes; her genius, her activism, her standing up for herself by being one of the first women to create her own prod co, to name a few fully fleshed achievements. If you read twitter, 100k so far @ 10/1 pm, most could not finish it. For that, it's the finish of Dom as a director, and Brad Pitt will suffer as well. We the audience feed them both... Our trust in them, is gone for good.
I love how you absolutely know the movie is based off of a fictional take on the women's life but still complain that a bunch of stuff about her REAL LIFE isn't in it...and imply that the director messed up because of it. if Andrew wasn't a man, I guarantee y'all wouldn't be hating this movie this hard.
@@Jay-Jones EMPHASIS
i got in SUCH trouble for openly declaring that i adored this film. it made me cry quite hard and that's pretty rare for a number of films, but it absolutely related to so many occurrences of assault / abuse but also speaking as someone who has been diagnosed (independently, three times) with narcissistic personality disorder - it hit very hard, and then being raked over the coals for saying that it did something for me was a very odd experience. i really appreciate your view on this and it's actually been the most balanced that i've encountered so far. i continue to love this film, but i also appreciate that it's fairly exploitative over a figure that so few people understand and/or ever have a reliable insight into. i also continue to hope that my love of this film doesn't hurt others.
Thanks!
...thank you back!
Thank you for this wonderful analysis. I feel like you hit the nail on the head.
Perfectly said, just watched it myself and absolutely loved Ana De Armas' portrayal and acting chops, but the movie itself felt very disjointed and almost a pity party movie. Marilyn's life was tragic yes, but she was clearly a very smart businesswoman and knew what she was doing. I wished the film showcased more of her comedy, her funny side, and of course her business side.
So glad I found you. An immaculate review.
Didn’t hate it , but found it hard to love has a very David lynch dreamlike quality to it which isn’t for everyone but I personally didn’t mind . It looks absolutely stunning and I adored the film’s score I think I’d probably give it like a 6.5 out of 10
"It's like you gave birth to yourself" was an entirely appropriate line, given the framework of the character who says it. It also has an interesting dash of self awareness while being played very sincere, which kind of makes it immune to any criticism. It's also one of those lines that has en eternal truthfulness to it, even though it may feel heavy handed in the moment.
I agree with most of this. I respect the hell out of what Dominik was going for, but a lot of it just felt way too on the nose. That said, I guess I’ll differ from you and say that I liked the film. And I think it’s because I so respect what he’s trying to do, and I think a lot of it works. The tagline for the film is “watched by all, seen by none”. And I think a lot of people went into this movie expecting that quote to finish with, “until now” and I love that Dominik chooses not to do that. There’s no way we can understand this person, so why pretend? Instead focusing on her pure trauma, juxtaposed with the cult of celebrity demonically possessing the true self, I think is a really good choice, and I think a lot of the brutality comes through despite the on the nose execution that at times borders on parody. Not the best film of the year, and not the worst. But maybe the most bold and most notable.
So what is the best and worst movie of the year? 😊
@@mabusestestament Best: Mad God, Worst: maybe The Gray Man? There’s a lot that could contend lol
I didn’t think the cult of celebrity thing was a theme in this movie. Movie’s nearly 3 hours, and her actual career in modeling and movies adds up to what? 20 minutes, maybe. The CGI fetus got more lines than Tony Curtis and Billy Wilder. This felt more like The Passion of the Christ: Hollywood edition.
You explained it perfectly! Everyone and I mean everyone is trashing on it calling it an exploitation movie when they don’t realise it’s not a biopic, it’s based on the book of the same title. This will go down as one of history’s most misunderstood masterpieces.
In a word--Sucked!
I was anticipating this review
Facts!!
I haven't yet tackled Joyce Carol Oates' long novel which is the actual source material, which is pertinent when discussing how to approach this material. I'm familiar with Oates' other works and she has a tendency to approach subjects from a psychological perspective. Before, she took inspiration from real life events, and used fiction to dissect them in her own way. "Blonde", however, wasn't written that way. Instead of creating a fictional parallel to the blonde bombshell archetype it became a fantastical look at Marilyn Monroe as the figure. It's similar to Don DeLillo's "Libra" and its take on the life of Lee Harvey Oswald. There was a lot of psychological speculation. I felt that this film adaptation condensed a lot of those elements down into a frantic three hours. There have been many films about Monroe, some exploring the abuse she endured in the foster care system in her youth, but this film decided to take on one of those aspects of her life and experiences as a thread regarding what her mentality and emotional state was like trapped in that sphere. I do remember a TV miniseries adaptation of the novel that came out years ago which should get attention again as a polarized take on the novel.
I think the zombie biopic opinion is a point of view I haven't heard before. I don't mind them as a genre. The movie is brutal and visceral. Requiem for a Dream with Marilyn. She probably was traumatised, exploited and controlled. Look at Brittany Spears.
Britttany
The way you say words omg . I feel productive after listening
Andrew Dominik’s Blonde revels in Marilyn Monroe’s misery
If you want to sit through two hours and 46 minutes of agony and abuse!! F- and I'm being KIND!!!!🤑
I agree with so much of what you said, but I think I enjoyed it. I kind of thought of it as taking the psychological and making it the literal in a way that opened up the audience into her p.o.v. some of the execution was sloppy and not well connected, but like you said, I completely admire the-lack of a better word-balls for trying to explore the myth. Personally I’m kind of sick of trying to expose the real Marilyn simply because it’s impossible, but I think exposing the psyche of the myth and icon of MARILYN is far more interesting. Artistically stunning, but definitely a 6/10 movie as a collective
Is there supposed to be a rhyme or reason to the changing frame rate / aspect ratio / color grading? For the life of me I could not discern a pattern to it. Was it just a device to further destabilize us? I don't think that's enough of a reason to justify those aesthetic choices...
Excellent review- always love watching your thoughtful, eloquent & insightful reviews. 'like melted butter on toast' is a great analogy!
A lot of women call their boyfriend or husband "daddy" especially back then as disturbing as it sounds
It reminded me a lot of Spencer with Kirsten Stweard, I felt like I was watching a horror movie, like a nightmare. I don't understand how anyone can see this movie and think it is trying to be an accurate bio pic. It was just to long and just to sad...
I found that the film was just trying to be shocking. However I did enjoy the cinematography
It's based on a book. It's very faithful to the book
@@Gavin48 Well, I felt that the book was also just trying to be shocking
@@blakemeads9225 I don't really get everyone saying that. From what we have learned from #Metoo and how powerful men treat women. I think this movie was right to go down the kinda Horror shocking route. Kinda like how Spencer when that route.
I think he's most recognizable for Chopper, that movie kinda got that global cult following in the last 20 years
Some aspects of thisfilm was hard to grasp for regular movie watchers
This film is a masterpiece. It’s tackles the essential question of Monroe’s life, why did she kill herself? Why, if as people assume she had it all was she dead in her thirties? The film suggests a possible explanation. It also explains our participation in creating and destroying her. Marylin was a helpless lamb. Elia Kazan said she wasn’t stupid, but she was incredibly gullible. “She believed in fairytales but no one ever told her to watch out for the ogres under the bridge. She was always childlike.” -Kazan
They captured all of that in a brilliantly beautifully tragic way.
Monroe is an enigma. We know virtually nothing about her. The one thing you’ll notice about those who knew her and spoke of her was the lack of sympathy or sadness at the loss of their “friend.” I don’t think I’ve seen anyone shed a tear over her. Hers is a truly tragic, tragic, story. There isn’t anything else.
Am i the only one who thinks this is not worth an NC-17 rating? I feel like Crash (1996) was more NC-17. This is like hard R to me
Idk if it's just me being incredibly desensitized to a lot of shit, but almost every NC-17 film I've seen has been mostly tame to me. Even Cronenberg's Crash doesn't feel any more extreme than the average R rated movie. Irreversible is probably the only film I've seen that warrants an NC-17 rating simply because the rape scene lasts so long and seems so real.
Yeah I agree. Was very tame.
@@deepfocuslens 🤗
The only good part of the film was the gal who played Marilyn.
Rest of the acting was great, the casting was good.
Unfortunately, the story was not well told.
Actually, horribly told.
Monroe fans should stay clear of this turd.
Thumbs down.
I've been warned by people who have actually seen Blonde, not to see it unless you're into s&m or fantasize about Rape. I will be skipping it.
I just hear her agents say "think; award winning" when discussing being topless and doing this film in general. They did release it in theaters so they could be in the running.
An unnamed famous baseball player, a movie mogul named Mr. Z, only the figures that are portrayed sympathetically rate a name in this one. It feels like a legal department wringing their hands over the whole movie. And Marilyn's first husband, Doherty, doesn't even rate a mention. Does that mean that she didn't call him daddy? I often think of Doherty inviting his bench-mate and friend at Lockheed, Robert Mitchum, over to dinner during the war. It would have been nice to see them interact as the friends they were during the war and then make a movie together later--The River of No Return. Otto Preminger yelling at her would have added to the movie as well--but then I guess he would have become Mr. P. I wonder about the complicity of Joyce Carol Oates in this travesty, not having read the novel. The stupid device of Chaplin Jr. writing letters as her father I suspect is from the novel.
So glad you did a review. I’ll watch the movie and come back to this because I always love hearing your opinions:)
I loved the film. It showed The actresses incredible skills at not only being MM - but more importantly Norma Jean. This was never meant to be an easy watch. Norma Jean suffers so much abuse at the hands of her mother - who never wanted her. And total abandonment from her father - she created the icon of MM. that’s what makes her so phenomenal to me. I would love a similar portrayal of Cary Grant. He said beautifully when asked what it was like to be him, ‘ I’m Archibald Leach - I would love to be as handsome, debonair and as attractive as Cary Grant - wouldn’t you?? ‘. He was also incredibly abused as a child. Let’s make a real film about him too.
That kind of reminds me of Mulholland Drive by David Lynch you know the perception of Hollywood versus the reality
Hey, great review. Although you didn't like the film, I can see you viewed it with an open mind and gave it considerable thought. I agree that biopics are lame, and Blonde is most definitely not lame in the same way, you gotta admit. I saw a reviewer claiming Marilyn lacked agency in the film. You make a similar point, stating that she must have stepped on a few necks to gain such fame. I don't disagree with your point, but to claim her character lacks agency is to be blind to how art works. In art, often times what isn't shown reveals more than what is shown: the fact is that Marilyn, with all her fame and fortune, has greater agency than just about any female character ever depicted on the screen. She could have quit her job at the height of her success and lived comfortably without ever working another day in her life again. And yet she didn't... That much is true, and Dominik's film never denies this truth. Instead the movie creates an enormous emptiness to be occupied by the viewer. These strong reactions the film is evoking represent the audience wrestling in that emptiness. No spoon-feeding here. Some people are gonna starve! I think the film is spectacular, but I could be wrong, however, I know I'm not wrong when I say Domink's artistic choices are gutsy as all hell.
Bleak. Hollow. Soulless.
A difficult film to sit through. Its morbid tone leaves you feeling uneasy with graphic sexual violence and abusive nature.
Marilyn Monroe’s story needed to be told with heart and understanding of who this woman was during her time on and off camera.
Marilyn is represented as a shadow figure against bright lights and glitter, without a trace of her real struggle to find redemption as a human with a troubled past.
It’s a missed opportunity to have made a great film from this extraordinary life.
well did it ever occur to you , that ... thats how her life was behind close doors . bleak, hollow and soulless.
My advice: watch "The Misfits" instead.
It is sort of amazing how Monroe is always a metaphor, never a person.
I want to just dismiss it as all style no substance, but admittedly I was pretty effected by the last act (even if it was drawn out) and a couple of montage sequences. I think the sequence when she marries Arthur and they’re running on the beach with the score playing is one of the best scenes of 2022.
A film caring more about transmitting certain undefineable feelings through images doesn't mean it's style over substance. The substance is within the form and because there's no definitive meaning, there's enough room for us to fill it up with our own thoughts and ideas.
You're very interesting to listen to. The way you phrase your ideas and opinions is very unique and thorough
Agree with you I don’t think the movie is deserving of the hysteria that the Twitter trolls are throwing its way, although it does go a little too far in one scene towards the end of the film. It’s definitely more of a European art house film than a traditional ‘Biopic’
It looks stunning and Ana De Armas should definitely get an Oscar Nomination for her performance as she really does carry the film. I just remember wishing there was more of a script for her to play with because for a nearly three hour film it doesn’t have enough dialogue. I kinda liked the idea of ‘Marilyn Monroe’ as being a creation, a separate persona to Norma Jeane. A persona that both gives her a sense of empowerment but by the end of the film is a prison she can’t escape. But the film never delves deeper into that beyond visuals and atmosphere. I felt some of the relationships she had in the film are left half way through without being resolved and that really adds to the emotional distance that you speak of, especially in the 3rd act. And the dialogue is way too on the nose.
So in summary Ana De Armas is brilliant, and the Cinematography is stunning but it feels more style over substance.
There was a TV movie called “Norma Jean & Marilyn” that explored precisely that separate creation idea. Indeed, Norma Jean and Marilyn were played by two separate actresses- Ashley Judd and Mira Sorvino. Needless to say, it was yet another artistically failed biopic.
@@DeflatingAtheism Might need to check that out
Styly is substance.
@@sandorx4 Only when you can make complete sense of it. Otherwise it’s a gimmick
An amazing movie !! Ana's performance is nothing short of amazing and Oscar-worthy! It's not super accurate, but again, it's not a documentary and is't not called Marilyn Monroe, but Blonde. It's show how strong and smart she was, how did she survived so many traumas, which now days, specially young generation have no clue, that this could even happen to someone.
People whom never suffer, whom had a hard life, who never survived a serious life trauma, will not like and understand this movie. They are like a snowflakes, making up imaginary problems, which hurt their super fragile feelings. I pity them for their childish view of the world.
I'd take your opinion on the need to suffer before understanding suffering much more seriously if you learned the proper use of whom v who. I get the feeling English isn't your 1st language. Simple is better.
Using words like snowflakes in regards to people who disagree with you is childish and un-serious. It makes you look foolish.
Very insightful and articulate review. Thank you!
In real life, Marilyn Monroe had terrible personal hygiene.
I think the same way you did about the film, Im a big Ana de Armas fan, and even though she is great in the film, it ended up portying this victim who got toss arround everywhere specially by men, which must to have been the norm back ln those days, I would have liked to see a more strong female character even if that ment adding a bit of fiction to the film, first time on this channel and I like your critique I'm going to keep comming back.
Marilyn Monroe was a confection! Norma Jean is who you are talking about and who you keep referring to as Marilyn. As the character constantly reminds us in the movie. Which is a point of the movie. It’s about exploitation, of a woman, in this case, and the damming overall business model of Hollywood. And we’ve seen this play out in real life with the Weinstein saga promoting the Me too movement. This movie would not have been made before these events.
Oh hell yeah I was hoping you'd review this
Ana blew this performance out of the park & I personally enjoyed this film & the direction it took. Perhaps people just hate seeing such an icon be so raw & real in an adaptation of what Marilyn may have felt & gone through.
It is important to note that Blonde is not a straight biography but is based on a novel by Joyce Carol Oates. The novel is based on Monroe's life but is fiction and so is the movie.
I watched it and I don't know what to think of all of it yet but I do know one thing: I thought the lead character was blonde.
This is a really good, clear review. I appreciate it
I still have no clue why the camera would randomly change aspect ratios & colour, it was useless & distracting.
After watching the film today and learning how much Marilyn suffered, even though this is based on a book that may be 70% fiction, not goin to lie tho some scenes were a little disturbing and I hope they didn’t have an affect on Ana’s mental health. Honestly it was amazing and haunting, Ana De Armas deserves all the awards coming to her after playing this role.
exact ! couldn't add an extra word to this review ! wow
I just wish more biopics were like the Will Sasso Elvis sketch on MadTV.
Best soundtrack of the year.
Who cares?
I like the black and white segments of the movie
I appreciate the art/cinematography and yup it kinda remind me of fever dream, BUT out of all the books that has been written about Marilyn they decided to get inspired from that “male fantasy book” 😬 I was very disappointed honestly
Excellent review, the first half of the movie should have been cut because it’s the last half of the movie that was interesting to me
I agree with a lot of the comments here. It's definitely not a biopic: it's a psychedelic fever dream for sure. Rather it's more of a nightmare and an incredible depiction of Borderline Personality Disorder. I think it knows exactly what it's about and it's cruelly realistic and as you said beautifully filmed. I thought it was amazing and devastating.
Wasn't really interested in watching this film, but now after knowing your opinion about it, I won't watch it without any regrets.
I respect your opinion. I always do. But the gold dust slipping through your fingers and shimmering is the essence of her and so goes the movie about her.
Your insights I'm fine with but every other reviewer that didn't like it, well I think we are in a very bad way right now as a society where they can't even appreciate a very good film and understand what it means as we traded our interpreting art and storytelling skills for reactionary attention getting nonsense.
Alot of these reviews are hey look what I think. What can I say to look like I am a good person, or to get people to look at my comment or my video.
Should I choose shock value, outrage or just sheer superiority even if I really don't know anything about storytelling or filmmaking or art.
The Netflix explanation is an almost perfect mindset to adopt before you watch it.
It says it a fictional telling into her inner life (not her social world) and the struggles she most likely was going through. As if inside her mind.
Who cares what she had to eat or the relationships that she had. Most biopics are laughable parodies of themselves. Think Walk Hard.
But not this one.
And people complaining about it not being accurate. I can't even.
I liked the movie a lot, but I definitely think you gave it a more critical (mostly) negative review of it than the major media outlets did.
Dominik is New Zealand born, not Australian. He moved to Australia at the age of 2.
ana is an amazing, beautiful, cute and humble woman. she is what every woman should be like! feminine, elegant and strong. people should leave her alone and stop destroying her! disgusting humanity
Ana Armas is one of the greatest actors of her generation, and her playing Marylin Monroe seems like a perfect choice. Too bad the movie didn't live up with it.
Very good analysis and review of the movie! This channel absolutely deservers more views for the quality of review it provides. If you are willing to hear some youtube advice, I would suggest you put some more effort into the thumbnail as an actionable part of the UA-cam equation for success. Something a bit more professional like the title of the movie and some cool background with you in the corner, instead of this generic shot of you next to your bookcase in every video for the past 10 years. If you don't care at all, that's fine, keep up the good work :)
Reagan called Nancy "Mommy" and Pence his wife "Mother".
Walk Hard is my favorite biopic. I haven't seen Blonde, and probably won't.
I'd rather watch a documentary of a historic figure. Biopics are as much about the actor playing the famous person. "Man of a Thousand Faces" is as well known as a James Cagney movie as the bio of Lon Chaney.
Great review! Seem no one enjoyed watching this movie. I might skip it. Too bad cause I loved "Killing them Softly" (good scenes in there) and "the Assassination of jj" (great cinematography) 😊✌🏼
I get what the movie was trying to do, and I respect it for that, I just think it misfired. Ana de Armas was incredible though.
My main problem with this movie was the aspect ratio. I kept thinking, dude, choose one and stick with it! it was really distracting for no real reason.
I agree with your review, the movie is beautiful looking but misguided. Andrew Dominic is a good director but the wrong guy for this project. This would have worked far better if David Lynch had directed it - if you’re going to go with a surreal horror take on Monroe’s life then Lynch is your guy.
You do know this film is based on the novel of the same name by Joyce Carol Oates?
Such true and interesting observations ... Great channel ...
Great review. You said what was on my mind after viewing the film.
It was ‘GAW’ pervy-fap-art. Overindulges in MM’s ‘frailty’ and ‘helplessness’. It undermines her as a person, despite it being exploitive none of it seems serviceable or necessary. It was like The Great Gatsby and Showgirls has a biopic cringe baby.
I loved the movie! And i loved ur honest review soo much positivity. Some people really dont get the movie.
The whole movie was a big absolution for all the mistakes which Marilyn Monroe commit. She was drugged by other, she drank because the life was so bad to her, she behaved as a diva because she didn't wanted to be Marilyn so for and so on. But after watching the movie I still don't know her. So, after all it seems that movie is not about her but more the hard life of a female Hollywood star. Also I did not get the meaning of the endless naked scenes with her. I am not complaing about the pictures itself. Ana de Armas is a beautiful woman. She looks pretty. I liked to watch her. But I felt it had no actual meaning to the story. Where the movie really did not convinced me, were the scenes who they tried to show us the real Norma Jeane. These scenes were way too artificially. In conclusion, not a good movie, but by Netflix-Standards also not the worsed ;)
This movie was fantastic. Ana did such an incredible job. The cinematography and editing was phenomenal. Would've definitely been one of the people giving a standing ovation in Venice.
Hollywood, how about you just leave Marilyn alone?! F this movie.