Hey guys!
Blonde certainly was among the most talked about films in 2022. After seeing the trailer I already had my doubts that this would be good, but naturally, I couldn’t resist and just had to check it out!
The Plot (according to Rotten Tomatoes):
Based on the bestselling novel by Joyce Carol Oates, Blonde boldly reimagines the life of one of Hollywood’s most enduring icons, Marilyn Monroe. From her volatile childhood as Norma Jeane, through her rise to stardom and romantic entanglements, Blonde blurs the lines of fact and fiction to explore the widening split between her public and private selves.
The Rating:
What on earth was this movie?
Bad. That’s what it was. I rarely say this but honestly, don’t waste your time. There’s pretty much nothing good I have to say about Blonde.
Let’s start with Ana de Armas. She’s a wonderful actress and she really nailed the Marilyn look but her accent just was not it. I don’t care how long she might have spent working on it but you can simply tell that she’s not getting it right. In fact, it’s not even that she’s a little off. There are many instances in the movie where you can clearly hear Ana de Armas’ Cuban accent and I think we can all agree that that’s not what Marilyn sounded like. That already annoyed me to no end but it’s only a small part of what ruined this film for me.
While I might have been able to tolerate the accent to some degree, what I can’t overlook is the more than terrible writing. This movie is nothing but misery porn. It paints Marilyn Monroe as nothing but a series of tragedies, there’s pretty much no moment of happiness in the film. While I could accept it if they were trying to make an accurate depiction of her life and it really was this tragic, so many parts of it feel weird and oddly exaggerated if not fabricated. Maybe they are being faithful to what actually transpired, I have no way of knowing that. But if that is the case they sure did a shit job.
Throughout the film you get the clear impression that Marilyn struggled with never being perceived as who she is and then this movie sweeps in and instead of giving her more agency, somehow we only ever keep witnessing her through others or in relation to them. Even in a film titled Blonde, a film about Marilyn herself, she feels more like a plot device and object to connect other people the movie wants to feature than a real person, the one we should be focusing on here. It becomes quite evident when it comes to how she struggled with being perceived as a sex symbol. I’m sure this is an integral part of telling her story. Then somebody please tell me why on earth we get close-up shots of her naked breasts approximately every ten minutes. Not once or twice throughout the movie, but constantly. For no reason whatsoever. Literally, there is no explanation I could come up with as to why she had to be naked in all those scenes. Was it to show that struggle? Her vulnerability? Again, if that was the case, this movie that a shit job of conveying that. It just feels voyeuristic and unnecessary and annoying. Especially as it’s a contrast to what Marilyn is talking about in several instances.
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