Blonde

There’s at least one moment in “Blonde,” Andrew Dominik’s dazzling, depressing and fatally incurious movie about Marilyn Monroe, when you might not be sure if you’re watching Ana de Armas or the genuine article. Watching this lustrous black-and-white sequence, set during the production of “Some Like It Hot” (1959), I was briefly certain that was the real Monroe boop-boop-be-dooping her way through “I Wanna Be Loved by You,” so evocatively does De Armas narrow her gaze (her eyes are the big giveaway) and drink in the milky…

Joyce Carol Oates has reacted to Blonde’s NC-17 rating, saying that what Marilyn Monroe really went through is “much worse” than anything shown in the film. The new Netflix psychological drama biopic starring Ana de Armas as the late Hollywood icon is based on Oates’ 2000 novel of the same name. Since its theatrical release, it’s received mixed critical reviews, with The Independent’s Amanda Whiting arguing that “Blonde isn’t a movie about Marilyn Monroe’s exploitation, but a new low watermark in Hollywood’s treatment of…

How should we assess writer-director Andrew Dominik’s adaptation of Joyce Carol Oates’s historical fiction novel about the inner life of Marilyn Monroe? Some have viewed it as a biopic and judged it accordingly, worrying about its (lack of) fidelity to the known details of Monroe’s life, and attempting to evaluate how accurately or (un)fairly it presents her strengths and weaknesses, on and off screen. Others have interpreted it as a more expressionist portrayal of the gap between private and public personae – a generic…

Chris Evans recently shows support for his The Gray Man co-star Ana De Armas. In his latest interview with Variety, Evans shared his reaction to seeing the actress in the role of Marilyn Monroe for the upcoming film, predicting that she’ll take home an Academy Award for her work. For the unversed, the Netflix movie has earned some controversial reviews, however, critics praised Ana De Armas’ performance. Meanwhile, Evans, who starred in Knives Out and The Gray Man with Ana de Armas, shared, “I think this was one of the…

Blonde begins with a hallucinatory prologue in which Death takes the form of a bicycle messenger threading his way through traffic to an address where the occupant is recorded as “MM”. Joyce Carol Oates’s “radically distilled” take on Marilyn Monroe’s life – a film of which comes to Netflix this month – delves deep into the actor’s early years when she was still called Norma Jeane, depicting a wretched childhood marked by a narcissistic, alcoholic mother; spells in an orphanage and a foster home; and marriage at 16. From…

Image: Netflix Already looking to be one of the most polarizing films of the year, Blonde director Andrew Dominik has responded to the murmurs of troubles behind the scenes of the Ana de Armas-led film. Blonde always looked set to be controversial, with a rare NC-17 rating being slapped onto the film before its release. Reviewers have almost universally praised de Armas’s performance, though, but several questions were raised over Dominik’s direction and vision for the film. With a mixed response from audiences…

Blonde, the new Netflix film from Andrew Dominik, adds as much nuance to the idea of Marilyn Monroe as can be gleaned from a gynaecological exam. The bombshell movie star has long been established as a tragic figure, a woman who was abused by Hollywood studios, her husband Joe DiMaggio, and, as a child, her unwell mother. Rather than challenge the conventional narrative, director Dominik’s nightmarish film, adapted from Joyce Carol Oates’s fictionalised 2000 novel, takes it somewhere even darker and even more invasive. If…

Ana de Armas paid her respects to Marilyn Monroe more than once while appearing as the Hollywood icon in Blonde.The 34-year-old Cuban-Spanish actor stars in the new Netflix movie based on Joyce Carol Oates’ novel of the same name.In a new interview with Variety, de Armas said that she struggled to move on from the role after filming wrapped.“I couldn’t say goodbye,” she said. “I couldn’t shake it off. I couldn’t let her go. I went to visit her at her cemetery a few times – I would have liked to go one more time.”Monroe is…

A surreal look at a tragic screen icon and a feisty interpretation of a Medieval teen tale are the film highlights of this week. Also sweeping into theaters on the winds of one eventful promotional tour is the much-discussed “Don’t Worry Darling” with Florence Pugh and Harry Styles. It screened too late for us to review. Here’s our roundup (we’ll review the Oprah-produced documentary on sidney Poitier next week). “Blonde”: Subtlety is nowhere to be found in screenwriter/director Andrew Dominik’s hypnotic, innovative and…

Ana de Armas has already predicted that her nude scenes in her forthcoming film, Blonde, will go viral and frankly she finds it “disgusting”.The 34-year-old Cuban-Spanish actor stars as famed Hollywood icon Marilyn Monroe in the new Netflix movie, based on Joyce Carol Oates’ novel of the same name. While Blonde won’t be available to stream until 28 September, it’s already received a lot of attention for its NC-17 rating for sexual content in the US, a rating with which de Armas has strongly disagreed. However, she’s…