Marilyn

Dir: Andrew Dominik. Starring: Ana de Armas, Julianne Nicholson, Adrian Brody, Bobby Cannavale. 18, 165 minutesNever mind the diamonds. I’ll tell you who isn’t a girl’s best friend: Andrew Dominik, the writer-director of Blonde, a merciless, dull, over-long riff on Marilyn Monroe. Across its lengthy running time, the Hollywood star has a time of it. She is nearly drowned by her mother. Raped at an audition. Forced into an abortion. Harangued by the unborn foetus she’s about to abort. Attacked by a husband she calls…

Netflix has finally released its controversial Marilyn Monroe drama Blonde – but some viewers have complained that the film is “unwatchable”.Many viewers specified on social media that they had been unable to make it more than 20 minutes into Blonde before abandoning it.The 18-rated movie, based on the novel of the same name by Joyce Carol Oates, stars Ana de Armas as Monroe. It has divided critics, with particular scrutiny being levelled at the film’s harrowing depiction of trauma and sexual assault. In a one-star review…

Separating fact from fiction is tricky in the new Marilyn Monroe drama Blonde. The Netflix film, which stars Ana de Armas in its central role, doesn’t take the familiar form of a Hollywood biopic steeped in research. Instead it’s based on the best-selling Joyce Carol Oates novel of the same name from 2000, itself a highly fictionalised work emphasising the ways in which Marilyn was victimised across her life.Similarly, the film controversially depicts some of the most traumatic moments of the Hollywood actor’s life, from…

Credit: 20th Century Fox/Netflix Blonde, the adaptation of the novel of the same which attempts to unpack the life of Marilyn Monroe, has just landed on Netflix. Audiences and critics aren’t particularly thrilled with the movie, which at the time of writing sits below a 50 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Beginning to understand why this somewhat biographical film isn’t landing with people may begin with its director, Andrew Dominik. In a recent interview with BFI’s Christina Newland, Dominik shared some…

Credit: Netflix Netflix has finally launched its highly anticipated Marilyn Monroe biopic Blonde and this anticipation has quickly turned sour as audiences share their thoughts on the film. Many viewers have taken to social media to slam the film for what they perceive to be its exploitative antics, taking offence to how Monroe is represented in the film. Since its launch, social media has lit up with Netflix subscribers airing their disappointment in the film’s existence for a variety of reasons but mostly…

Before Diana, there was another blonde whose potent blend of fragility and beauty stirred up pity and lust, and whose tragic death at age 36 cemented her status as a cultural obsession.Half a century after her fatal overdose (or suicide, or murder – the conjectures and conspiracy theories abound), Marilyn Monroe’s star still burns bright and hot. Her name appears on the latest cover of American Vogue, which features an essay by Lena Dunham on the icon’s legacy. The ever-growing library of biographies includes volumes by…

Separating fact from fiction is tricky in the new Marilyn Monroe drama Blonde. The Netflix film, which stars Ana de Armas in its central role, doesn’t take the familiar form of a Hollywood biopic steeped in research. Instead it’s based on the best-selling Joyce Carol Oates novel of the same name from 2000, itself a highly fictionalised work emphasising the ways in which Marilyn was victimised across her life.Similarly, the film controversially depicts some of the most traumatic moments of the Hollywood actor’s life, from…

Andrew Dominik has addressed his use of foetal imagery in his new Marilyn Monroe film Blonde, saying he wasn’t “concerned with being tasteful”.The director’s Netflix psychological drama, which stars Ana de Armas as the late Hollywood icon, is based on Joyce Carol Oates’s 2000 novel of the same name. However, The Independent’s Amanda Whiting argued that Dominik’s movie takes the original story “somewhere even darker and even more invasive”. Since its theatrical release, the film has received mixed reviews from critics,…

Ana de Armas photographed at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel.(Yuri Hasegawa / For The Times) Graciously illuminated by the midafternoon California sun, Ana de Armas tries to recall when or how she first became aware of Marilyn Monroe. The fast-rising star can’t pinpoint when their paths first crossed.“To be honest, I don’t think I remember the first time I saw her,” she said during a recent chat from her home in Los Angeles.It may have been decades ago in Santa Cruz del Norte, Cuba — perhaps one of…

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…