Blonde (2022)

Fictionalised Melodrama - Powerful With Topnotch Lead Performance - Blonde review by GI

Adapted from a fiction novel that utilises myths and legends of the troubled life of Marilyn Monroe this film is more a gothic melodrama than a biopic. Indeed it's a mistake to view this as some sort of story of the actor's life as it takes various paths to tell a story that is simply an interpretation rather than a drama-documentary. Ana de Armas is simply extraordinary in the central role portraying Monroe as an exploited victim of the 'male gaze', a tortured soul who found fame but didn't find happiness. The film charts her life from childhood with an alcoholic and abusive mother (Julianne Nicholson) who tries to kill her, to her being forced into an orphanage knowing she actually hasn't been orphaned and her 'discovery' by a film producer who rapes her without warning. The Marilyn here quietly accepts the role she is given by powerful men and rises to become the sex symbol at a time when austere society rejected such icons. The images of leering men dominate the recreated scenes of film premieres and similar public appearances. Beaten by men, sexually assaulted or participating in sexual exploitation dominate the narrative for this character. One scene with President Kennedy is particularly unpleasant. But de Armas gives a warmth and vulnerability to Marilyn while masking the emotional turmoil she faces as she dreams of the father she was always promised by her mother but who never materialises (she calls both her husbands 'Daddy'!). These emotions boil over into anger and rage and eventually substance abuse. The details around supposed pregnancies are fictionalised but play an important part in showing the Marilyn Monroe of this version of her story as a woman who craved the simplicity of hearth, home and motherhood, all of which are denied her. A powerful, slightly overlong film with a a performance by de Armas that surely warranted awards.