Blonde
Blonde
Starring Ana de Armas, Adrien Brody, Bobby Cannavale, Xavier Samuel
Directed by Andrew Dominik
Starring Ana de Armas, Adrien Brody, Bobby Cannavale, Xavier Samuel
Directed by Andrew Dominik
There's very few films out there that I've seen that've been extremely difficult for me to watch, but not because of the grotesque nature of the thing, but by the sheer drudgery it develops. Films that are overly long, yet don't seem to tell any sort of story, but instead wanders aimlessly from one moment to the next and use tricky camera effects to try to be smarter than it is. "Blonde" is one such film: an extraordinarily exploitative "biopic" about one of Hollywood's most tragic real-life figures that leaves you feeling gross after watching it, mostly due to the subject matter, but also because you wasted almost three hours of your life that - apart from an Awards-worthy lead performance - would've been left to obscurity.
Norma Jeane Mortenson (Ana de Armas) hasn't had a great life, or even a good one. She never met her father, and her mother Gladys (Julianne Nicholson) blames her for their breakup and loses her mind, almost drowning the young girl in a bathtub. She is left to an orphanage when her mother is committed to an insane asylum, and she grows up to become Marilyn Monroe, one of the most beautiful actresses in the classic age of Hollywood. Yet not everything is magic, as she's continually sexually exploited and abused by the men in her world, and all the while all she wants is to be loved like a father loves his daughter. As her fame rises, her marriages crumble, and she spirals into the dark world of mental illness and drug abuse until they ultimately claim her life.
I'm the first to complain that biopics are all generic and the same, and in that vein "Blonde" stands out from the rest because it's a completely fictitious portrayal of Marilyn's life based on a book by Joyce Carol Oates that takes her well-known public life and crafts a wholly imagined private life to match. While the names, dates, and movies are real, everything else is created for cinema, and it seems like a way to further exploit Monroe, who was undoubtedly exploited while she was alive. Maybe it was the purpose of the director to give it this feel, or maybe we infer our own concerns for Monroe into it, but either way it's a dark, almost three-hour-long spiral into a woman's real life hell.
The cinematography in the film highlights this spiral as it constantly changes frame ratios from 1:1, 1.37:1, 1.85:1 and 2.39:1, and scenes move from black and white to color on a whim, providing a dizzying, blurry, disjointed atmosphere throughout that helps take us into Monroe's fractured mind. Monroe moves from man to man, and constantly is abused sexually, emotionally, mentally, and physically, and the effects the camerawork uses further pushes that narrative in a way that's even more demeaning for Monroe and, again, leaves you feeling gross.
This wouldn't have been a film I would've seen if not for the fact that Cuban actress Ana de Arams earned a surprise Oscar nomination for her role (all the more surprising because, just a day earlier, the film "earned" eight Razzie nominations - highlighting the worst in film). De Armas was the sole saving grace of "Blonde," as she clearly put in the work needed (and then some) to bring Monroe back to life. She spent over a year perfecting her voice, her look, and her mannerisms, and she blew it out of the water: looking, acting, and sounding like the spitting image of our Norma Jeane. You feel for her because she goes from moment to moment either as the victim of the men around her, or a pawn for more powerful men who use her sexuality for their own gain, and all the while all she wanted was a father figure to love her. People say Marilyn Monroe was a tragic beauty, and "Blonde" definitely sells that.
What makes the film all the more detestable is how she is portrayed, as mentioned earlier she's either a victim or a pawn, and seems to have no voice of her own. She - like the trailer said - was watched by all and seen by none, as it seemed absolutely no one in her life was in her corner, save for her odd relationship with Cass Chaplin Jr. and Edward G. Robinson Jr., who both showed her love and affection, but even that seemed to have caveats associated with it. Fever scenes of abortions, forced sexual acts, and a shocking scene shot from the inside of a toilet all add to the grossness of the film, and once again it didn't seem to really want to tell a story, but rather subject Monroe to more scorn and abuse, decades after her tragic suicide. If it weren't for Ana de Arams, this should never get any recognition.
The Score: D
Norma Jeane Mortenson (Ana de Armas) hasn't had a great life, or even a good one. She never met her father, and her mother Gladys (Julianne Nicholson) blames her for their breakup and loses her mind, almost drowning the young girl in a bathtub. She is left to an orphanage when her mother is committed to an insane asylum, and she grows up to become Marilyn Monroe, one of the most beautiful actresses in the classic age of Hollywood. Yet not everything is magic, as she's continually sexually exploited and abused by the men in her world, and all the while all she wants is to be loved like a father loves his daughter. As her fame rises, her marriages crumble, and she spirals into the dark world of mental illness and drug abuse until they ultimately claim her life.
I'm the first to complain that biopics are all generic and the same, and in that vein "Blonde" stands out from the rest because it's a completely fictitious portrayal of Marilyn's life based on a book by Joyce Carol Oates that takes her well-known public life and crafts a wholly imagined private life to match. While the names, dates, and movies are real, everything else is created for cinema, and it seems like a way to further exploit Monroe, who was undoubtedly exploited while she was alive. Maybe it was the purpose of the director to give it this feel, or maybe we infer our own concerns for Monroe into it, but either way it's a dark, almost three-hour-long spiral into a woman's real life hell.
The cinematography in the film highlights this spiral as it constantly changes frame ratios from 1:1, 1.37:1, 1.85:1 and 2.39:1, and scenes move from black and white to color on a whim, providing a dizzying, blurry, disjointed atmosphere throughout that helps take us into Monroe's fractured mind. Monroe moves from man to man, and constantly is abused sexually, emotionally, mentally, and physically, and the effects the camerawork uses further pushes that narrative in a way that's even more demeaning for Monroe and, again, leaves you feeling gross.
This wouldn't have been a film I would've seen if not for the fact that Cuban actress Ana de Arams earned a surprise Oscar nomination for her role (all the more surprising because, just a day earlier, the film "earned" eight Razzie nominations - highlighting the worst in film). De Armas was the sole saving grace of "Blonde," as she clearly put in the work needed (and then some) to bring Monroe back to life. She spent over a year perfecting her voice, her look, and her mannerisms, and she blew it out of the water: looking, acting, and sounding like the spitting image of our Norma Jeane. You feel for her because she goes from moment to moment either as the victim of the men around her, or a pawn for more powerful men who use her sexuality for their own gain, and all the while all she wanted was a father figure to love her. People say Marilyn Monroe was a tragic beauty, and "Blonde" definitely sells that.
What makes the film all the more detestable is how she is portrayed, as mentioned earlier she's either a victim or a pawn, and seems to have no voice of her own. She - like the trailer said - was watched by all and seen by none, as it seemed absolutely no one in her life was in her corner, save for her odd relationship with Cass Chaplin Jr. and Edward G. Robinson Jr., who both showed her love and affection, but even that seemed to have caveats associated with it. Fever scenes of abortions, forced sexual acts, and a shocking scene shot from the inside of a toilet all add to the grossness of the film, and once again it didn't seem to really want to tell a story, but rather subject Monroe to more scorn and abuse, decades after her tragic suicide. If it weren't for Ana de Arams, this should never get any recognition.
The Score: D
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