Blonde on Netflix

[Barry]

Blonde on Netflix
 
First, Ana de Armas, who plays Marilyn Monroe, is beautiful!. I first saw her in “No Time to Die” and then “Knives Out.”
 
Blonde is a worthless, depressing movie, shot in both black and white and in color, that is a totally fictionalized version of Monroe’s life.  It is not based on reality, but on a fictionalized story by Joyce Carol Oates. It is so fictionalized that the names of real people, such as Joe DiMaggio, are omitted or changed.
 
There is absolutely no joy in this movie, even in scenes that should be happy.  This includes her dating and marriage to the “ballplayer” and the premiere of the movie, “Gentleman Prefer Blondes.” Her misery is constantly shown and is drawn out, endlessly, in this movie that is almost three hours long.
 
At first, I thought that Ana de Armas was giving a convincing performance.  No her fault but the author/director, Andrew Dominik, prolongs everything, every miserable event, it becomes a caricature.   The abortion sequence is excruciating long.  The only emotions she shows is sadness, regret, misery and it just goes on and on.


The movie gives no depth to the characters, no understanding of events and no understanding of Marilyn.

[AVSCraig]

Maybe I'll watch " The Seven Year Itch " again instead then.

[Paul Heroy]

Thanks for taking one for the team, Barry. I was aware but not interested before (never been a particular fan of hers, or this kind of movie in general) but now I'll know to avoid it. There are movies like "Logan" that are not fun/happy, that are still good movies and I enjoy at times but this doesn't sound like one of those.

BTW, another movie where de Armas has a role, though smaller, is Blade Runner 2049. That's a much better watch.

[Barry]

I enjoyed the Blade runner movie too, as well as Logan.  I enjoy a good movie, even one that is serious. But this one had no substance.