Saw this at the flicks yesterday (in 4:3 ratio!) and WHAT A MOVIE. A startling, staggering, superb piece of filmmaking. NC-17 / UK 18 certificate On Netflix next week. Ana de Armas - I was sceptical at the casting - but she simply IS MARILYN.
She has been excellent in everything I've seen her in, so I had no doubt in the slightest that she would be excellent in this. I loved her in Knives Out, and she basically stole the show from the lead in a James Bond film.
Ana de Armas and Florence Pugh are my favorite two female actresses working at the top of their game. Both beautiful and both just fantastic actresses. My lovely and I have a rare difference on our desire to see Blonde. She is hesitant because of the amount of trauma and abuse depicted in the reviews of the movie. I am intrigued because of Ana de Armas and the great looking cinematography as well as the use of both black and white and color photography. I really want to know what you think of this movie when you see it. My lady is more excited about seeing Don't Worry Darling. People might want to check out Mark Kermode and Mayo's very interesting video review of Blonde. He says to not expect a biographical movie, but more of a horror movie. He actually means that as a sort of compliment as he is a fan of well made horror movies. Mark Kermode reviews Blonde - Kermode and Mayo's Take
The director has been very clear that this is an arthouse fictionalized interpretation of Marilyn's life and not to be taken as a literal biographical story. Normies are going to be very upset if they are going into this expecting a straight life & times of MM. I expect a mainstream backlash on this movie to arrive quickly.
Having been vivisected in the 50s - including by her own hand - we can now see her life (or is it her life - who knows with the disclaimers and the disclaimers of the disclaimers) turned into a horror movie. Aren't there laws against abuse of a corpse?
Pugh is unreal she's so good, and were she the star of this, and better yet, had the director's fellow Kiwi Jane Campion helmed, I'd already have my ticket reserved, especially with Cave having constructed the soundtrack, and Oates being the source of the screenplay. Having seen this review, I'm safely warned off. It primarily appears to be yet ANOTHER Hollywood flick seeking to terrorize and traumatize audiences rather than enlighten, touch, awaken and/or entertain them; I ain't gonna plunk down 10 bucks to see Freddy Krueger in a blond wig.
I haven't seen it yet, but based upon the review posted by @RSteven, it's another take on Marilyn Monroe as a creation of Norma Jean Mortenson. If you accept that Marilyn Monroe was a character, then the only person at risk of being abused was the actress playing her. And from what I heard in that review, the filmmaker is very sympathetic to Norma Jean; he compares her switching into the Marilyn Monroe persona as akin to demonic possession. We have Norma Jean, we have Marilyn Monroe, we have how filmmakers saw Marilyn Monroe and we have how the audience saw Marilyn Monroe. I've seen Marilyn Monroe used as a character in many other films - as "The Actress" in Nicholas Roge's Insignificance, as a religious statue in the Who's Tommy, and in dozens of other places. While I was writing this reply, I saw another post by somebody who apparently didn't actually watch Mark's review. That was the same case for a lot of actresses, they created a persona to get work yet protect their real self. Sometimes they succeeded without harming themselves, and sometimes they didn't. "Every man I knew went to bed with Gilda... and woke up with me." Rita Hayworth
Two very legitimate viewpoints above and I can't really say which side I will come down on until I see the actual movie. I think that Ana de Armas is going to make the difference here as even critics that dislike the movie tend to give her kudos, much like the critics who don't seem to like Don't Worry Darling, but praise Florence Pugh's performce in it. Stay turned for Chris and my reviews later. We are not Kermode & Mayo, but we are pretty darn good, Lol.
You must be very selective on the reviews you count as it has a 54 on Metacritic and 52 on RT. Audience scores are even lower.
The only purpose Rotten Tomatoes serves for me is to point me in the direction of reviews, which I can then read and decide whether or not I want to see it. Critical consensus means nothing, especially when I don't know the tastes of these critics. I have have read or listened to at least a dozen other reviews by the same critic so I can tell whether or not they're trustworthy. For instance, I'm looking at the critics reviews for Blonde right now on Rotten Tomatoes. Tim Cogshell of Film Week liked it. Well, I've listened to him review several dozen films on the podcast, so I've got a good handle on his tastes. It indicates Richard Roper didn't. Well, I still think of Richard Roper as "the guy who couldn't fill Gene Siskel's shoes" and don't see him as especially useful. Peter Travers liked it, but then again he's hated a lot of films I loved. Looking through all critics reviews, most of these look like websites. Do I really care what Dennis Schwartz of Dennis Schwartz Movie Reviews thinks? Not unless I know what he thinks about a few dozen of my favorite films. Ebert, I could trust. But it was mostly because I knew what he wasn't trustworthy about. If he told me something wasn't funny, I would tend to disregard that (he rather famously didn't get Raising Arizona). If he told me it was complicated and confusing, then I would know that he had missed the beginning of the film because he was still out at the snack bar during the first 10 minutes of it (true story.)
Ive been learning to do the exact same thing. I use to know music critics a lot better than film critics, but since the Elvis movie came out, I really figured out which ones have similar tastes to me. Mark Kermode and Mick LaSalle seem like they are two of the more reliable critics with similar tastes to mine. I also agree with Chris that critical consensus means absolutely nothing, unless it is also met by almost universal positive audience ratings. I think I am going to like Don't Worry Darling a tad more than Mark Kermode did, but as I recall he liked Florence Pugh (doesn't everybody?) as well as all the great cars and cinematography. Mark and Mick both gave perfect scores to the Elvis movie, so that was a very good indication to me that they appreciate master class movie making when they see it. I am still awaiting Mick LaSalle to weigh in on Don't Worry Darling and Blonde.
I get it, and you've articulated nicely what we're supposedly getting with this supposedly highbrow flick. But I don't generally support torture porn, whether it's masquerading as art, or more brazen. The impact of this genre has been widespread and insidious, and it appears to have no end in sight.
I do have to say that as the linked review observed, I wondered whether it was Monroe or de Armas at times, though her own voice is so dissimilar from Monroe's I found that enormously distracting. But CGI could achieve a similar effect visually (and may have; at any rate a lot of work clearly went into tricks to make de Armas seem as Monroe-ish as possible), and that company in Ukraine that does JEJ's voice for Star Wars could have constructed one for the Monroe character (or IS it Monroe - all we know is that we get to be *entertained* by watching a beautiful woman being tortured for two hours) needs work no doubt. so... I remain curious about what others who see the flick will think, but I'm going to spare myself from seeing Joker in drag.
I wasn't going to say anything... VERY polarizing, and while I won't be picketing any theaters, I'll be protesting by doing what Hollywood hates the most.
Superb post, and Ebert WAS great wasn't he, and for some of the reasons you state. He hated Blue Velvet even more than I hate this Monroe (or IS it Monroe???) flick, though to be fair to him, he actually saw BV.
Looking forward to this movie whole time as it is about Marilyn and starring the lovely Ana De Armas. But now, as I just heard the first song from the Blonde-soundtrack it makes me even more hyped as I didn't actually know that Nick Cave & Warren Ellis made the soundtrack. Just wow! I have just have been watching the new Dahmer-series on Netflix this weekend and one of the highlights was once again the soundtrack by Nick Cave & Warren Ellis. It was chilling even to listen to the whole soundtrack before even seeing any actual episodes. I reall like how Nick and Warren have been really profilic with the soundtracks the past few years.
