We aren't really sure what Director Andrew Dominik was gunning for in "Blonde" but if it was a deep imitation and reflection of what Marilyn Monroe's career dumbed down to being a sex symbol then this was probably successful in doing that because this film was all skin and glamour and not much else in between. And it certainly felt like the kind of film that very few will rave about but most won't get its charm at all - and we're part of that latter group sadly. Technically-speaking, this was marvelous but as a film, the writing was just all over-the-place and over-the-top even for someone like Marilyn Monroe.
When she was 7 years old, Norma Jeane was forced to be an orphan when her mother became mentally-ill and unable to take care of her. But with her natural good looks, Norma Jeane eventually finds her way to fame as the blonde bombshell Marilyn Monroe (Ana de Armas). But even with all of her success, it seems that Norma Jeane has yet to find true love and true happiness as she struggles to break away from her famous persona.
You know a biographical film is bad when you're questioning a lot of what you're seeing on-screen. In "Blonde", we never found ourselves immersed into its take on Marilyn Monroe's tumultuous (or so it seems) life and career. Andrew Dominik's liberal take on her life story and free-form story-telling just didn't jive well in our opinion. If we could describe it in layman's terms - this was too artsy and too vague for a biographical film. Don't get us wrong though, the film was a technical showcase of Dominik's talent behind the camera and likewise on the acting front, Ana de Armas was simply stunning and outstanding as Marilyn. But even with all of its feats, we cannot deny that the film was just shallow and weak. It never gave us anything beyond literal eye-candies from scene to scene. It didn't help that it was almost three hours long making its unnecessarily complex and complicated story-telling method feel even longer. Overall, "Blonde" disappoints because it attempts to be complex in a manner that won't satisfy most people. What's a film that looks great but totally fails on pretty much everything else?
Blonde Movie Review: A Boring and Tepid Technical Showcase
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