“Blonde” is a new film by Andrew Dominik. It is a fictionalized take on the life and career of American actress Marilyn Monroe.
So let’s dive into some trivia and facts about the new film.
- Blonde is a 2022 American biographical film
- It is written and directed by Andrew Dominik
- The film is based on the 2000 novel of the same name by Joyce Carol Oates
- The film is a fictionalized take on the life and career of American actress Marilyn Monroe
- Ana de Armas portrays Marilyn Monroe
- The cast also includes Adrien Brody, Bobby Cannavale, Xavier Samuel, and Julianne Nicholson
- Along with shifting aspect ratios, a majority of the film is presented in black and white
- Other portions are set in color
- Dede Gardner, Jeremy Kleiner, Tracey Landon, Brad Pitt, and Scott Robertson serve as producers on the film
- After a lengthy period of development that began in 2010, production started in August 2019 in Los Angeles
- Production wrapped in July 2021, following the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020
- The film also garnered controversy and notoriety for its lead casting, graphic sexual content, and eventual status as the first NC-17-rated film to be released via a streaming service
- Blonde had its world premiere at the 79th Venice International Film Festival on September 8, 2022
- It began a limited theatrical release in the United States on September 16, 2022
- Before its streaming release on September 28, by Netflix
- The film received generally mixed reviews from critics
- Critics lauded de Armas’ performance
- They were polarized on Dominik’s depiction of Monroe’s life
- Some found his spin on the traditional biopic refreshing, while others criticized it as exploitative and dehumanizin
- The score was composed and performed by Nick Cave & Warren Ellis, with the soundtrack album set for release on September 28
- On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, Blonde holds an approval rating of 51%
- Based on 150 reviews
- With an average of 5.9/10
- The site’s critics consensus reads: “Blonde can be hard to watch as it teeters between commenting on exploitation and contributing to it, but Ana de Armas’ luminous performance makes it difficult to look away”
- On Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, the film has a score of 51 out of 100
- Based on 48 critics
- Indicating “mixed or average reviews”
- Joyce Carol Oates, the author of the novel on which the film is based, observed a rough cut of the film, and publicly stated: “I have seen the rough cut of Andrew Dominick’s [sic] adaptation and it is startling, brilliant, very disturbing and perhaps most surprisingly an utterly ‘feminist’ interpretation… not sure that any male director has ever achieved anything [like] this”
- Actress Jamie Lee Curtis—who starred opposite Ana de Armas in Knives Out (2019), and whose father, Tony Curtis, starred opposite Monroe in Some Like It Hot (1959) and is featured in the film—was impressed with de Armas’ performance
- Brad Pitt, who co-produced the film via his Plan B banner praised de Armas’ performance, saying “She is phenomenal in it. That’s a tough dress to fill. It was 10 years in the making. It wasn’t until we found Ana that we could get it across the finish line”
- Actor Casey Affleck also praised the film, stating, “I’ve seen a couple of versions of Blonde and it’s taken him [Dominik] a long time to get it out into the world. But that’s just how he is. He’s so slow with it. And it’s an amazing, beautiful film”
- Upon the trailers’ release, de Armas’ casting as Monroe received some backlash as some viewers felt her ethnic background did not entirely match Monroe’s
- With complaints that she still maintained her native Cuban accent.
- Monroe’s official estate defended de Armas’ casting, stating, “Marilyn Monroe is a singular Hollywood and pop culture icon that transcends generations and history. Any actor that steps into that role knows they have big shoes to fill. Based on the trailer alone, it looks like Ana was a great casting choice as she captures Marilyn’s glamour, humanity and vulnerability. We can’t wait to see the film in its entirety!”
- Blonde sparked some controversy when its NC-17 rating was confirmed, raising concerns that it would be exploitative in its depiction of Monroe
- The film itself features graphic scenes of sexual abuse, including a brutal rape scene
- As well as Monroe experiencing an abortion from her vagina’s point-of-view and a miscarriage
- Writing for Jezebel, Kady Ruth Ashcroft remarked on how the rating’s relationship with Monroe’s enduring status as a sex symbol in pop culture prevents the film from achieving its goal of humanizing her
- Speaking on the rating in an interview with Screen Daily, Andrew Dominik stated, “It’s a demanding movie—it is what it is, it says what it says. And if the audience doesn’t like it, that’s the fucking audience’s problem. It’s not running for public office”
- In an interview with fashion magazine L’Officiel Italia, de Armas echoed the sentiment, saying, “I don’t understand why it happened. I can cite a number of programs or movies that are much more explicit and with a lot more sexual content than Blonde. But to tell this story it’s important to show all those moments in Marilyn’s life that brought her to the end she did. It needs to be explained. In the cast everyone knew we should delve into unpleasant territory, it wasn’t just up to me”
- Delving into what Dominik’s vision for the film was, de Armas told Rotten Tomatoes, “Andrew’s ambitions were very clear from the start-to present a version of Marilyn Monroe’s life through her lens. He wanted the world to experience what it actually felt like to not only be Marilyn, but also Norma Jeane. I found that to be the most daring, unapologetic, and feminist take on her story that I had ever seen”
- In a piece for GQ, Keith Phipps argues that Blonde, being an exception from the commercial stigma of having an NC-17 rating due to its exclusive release on a streaming platform, could usher in a new era of films and filmmakers that will “push beyond the restrictions of the R rating”
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