'Blonde' is a long delayed passion project of the director Andrew Dominik, best known for 'The Assasination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford' and 'Killing Them Softly'. The film is an adaptation of the novel of the same name by Joyce Carol Oats, it is a factually lose retelling of the life of actress Marilyn Monroe with an obsessive focus on tragedy and pain. The film could accurately be described as nearly three hours of Marilyn Monroe being tortured.
The film is grim, even oppressive, but not without some artistry, espically visually; It switches back and forth between black and white and color, changes aspect ratios, blurs and alters faces at times and even plays with fire as a visual motif. The film is anchored by Ana de Armas giving a commited and sympathetic performance as Monroe; but this is Oscar caliber stuff in service of a seedy and tabloidy construction of a movie.
At 42 this is my first NC-17 film, the rating whose cheif utility for this picture was as a marketing gimmick. Explictness is promised and delivered, de Armas feels exploited and the viewer feels dirty. Adrian Brody gives a fine performance as playwrite Arthur Miller, here portrayed as the most well meaning of Marilyn's many lovers, which otherwise run the gamet from implied rape by an unnamed but implied Daryl F. Zanuck, to a JFK blowjob scene I couldn't believe I was actually seeing. The whole film has a car wreck sense of fascination to it, I found it difficult to embrace but hard to fully dismiss. It is I think destinded to be remembered as a momument to bad taste lavishly rendered in the tradition of 'Mommy Dearest'. **
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