Blonde Review

 

Blonde is a psychological drama film based on Joyce Carol Oates' 2000 novel of the same name. The film is produced by Plan B Entertainment and distributed by Netflix. Blonde is written and directed by Andrew Dominik.

The story is a little girl named Norma Jeane Mortenson had a very hard childhood. Years later she changes her name to Marilyn Monroe, and becomes the biggest star in Hollywood in the 1950s and early 60s. However, it's sadly not all glitz and glamour. Marilyn deals the struggles of love issues, abuse of power, and drug addiction in her private life.

Initial Reaction

The reason why I wanted to review this film was because 1) the trailer/marketing really seemed like this was going to be an incredible movie. Filled with great drama. 2) I just wanted to give a good old college try at reviewing an NC-17 flick.

Cons

Now I'm gonna get into some small issues with the film before I get into the big one. One of those small issues is the pacing. It started out fine at first, it was almost perfect even. But as the film kept going, the longer the movie felt. It's 2 hours and 46 minutes, but it felt like it was almost longer than that. Then there's the rating itself. It was such a big deal that this movie was rated NC-17, but after watching it, it didn't seem like it deserved that. Sure there's a lot of intense and sexual content in it, but that stuff felt like it could've also been in your typical rated R flick. Then we have the biggest problem with Blonde, and that's the way it was presented. What I mean by that is, while the movie is based on a book, the book is highly fictional, where even the writer herself [Joyce Carol Oates] has gone on record to say the book should be viewed as a work of fiction, and shouldn't be regraded as a biography. BUT THE MOVIE SURE DIDN'T FEEL LIKE THAT! Because of how the film presents itself, a majority of people felt like this was a biopic, instead of a work of fiction. Sure, we can pin point which moments were most likely fictionalized, and which are real, but because the movie itself doesn't give you more clues that the story is highly made up, a lot of people were left feeling like that watched a movie disrespecting Marilyn Monroe. Sure, she definitely had her issues, all Hollywood types do, even ones that have more of a triumphant story then a tragic one. But with this film, you're left to believe Marilyn never had one good moment of happiness, even when she was happily married to a guy she truly loved. So like I said before, instead of the movie giving us details that it isn't true, a lot of people got tricked into thinking they just watched a trashy hit piece on an iconic Hollywood star.

Middle Ground

The one gray aspect of Blonde is Andrew Dominik's directing. He did direct a nicely shot movie, even if some scenes are really hard to watch. But there quite a few decisions that I just didn't understand. Like the consist switching on going from full colored to black and white. I can't tell you just how much that got on my nerves.

Pros

Really the only great thing about this film is Ana de Armas' performance. Sure, there were a few moments where you can hear her accent, but that's easy to forgive, because her acting in this is amazing. She truly is the only good reason to watch this movie.

Blonde definitely disappointed me. It's pacing had a good start, but quickly got slow, there really wasn't a reason for the entire film to be rated NC-17, and the truly worse thing about the film is it doesn't tell you that the story is fictional, instead of historical. Andrew's directing is really good, but some of the choices he made didn't quite sit well with me. The only redeeming quality is Ana's acting.

My final rating is Bad.

So yeah, if you were looking forward to this, and wanted to watch it more on a Friday night, instead of Wednesday like I did, don't bother. Anyhow, that's going to do it for me, come back on Saturday, Oct 1st, for my review of Hocus Pocus 2. Until then, enjoy the rest of your day.