"Blonde" Review: Gripping Performance, Uninspired Story
Blonde is not a glamorous film. It’s a dark and depressing film about a Hollywood icon. While Chayse Irvin’s cinematography is beautiful to behold, the ugliness of the subject matter is hard to watch. Yet, if you can stomach it, this is an artistic expression of obsession, the trauma and brokenness the little kid inside all adults who have not dealt with it, and being alone in a room full of people.
The film starts with a young Norma Jeane Mortenson (Lily Fisher) being told by her mother that her father is a Hollywood power player. This seems to stick with Norma Jeane after her mother is institutionalized for mental health issues. As she pursues a career in modeling and acting in Hollywood, looking for her father is in the back of her mind. Dubious producers like Darryl F. Zanuck (David Warshofsky) take the opportunity to exploit the beauty with daddy issues in the worst ways. While Norma Jeane approaches the craft with sincerity and a great work ethic, she is constantly positioned into roles that play into a bombshell oozing sexuality. The attention leads her into a throuple relationship with Charles “Cass” Chaplin Jr. (Xavier Samuel) and Edward “Eddy” G. Robinson Jr. (Evan Williams). Relationship after relationship, abuse after abuse, leads to addiction, loneliness and ultimately ruin for Norma Jean.
The film is a biopic, so you know what it will cover, but the question is how. Ana de Armas gives an incredible performance that is pure and heartbreaking. In a particular scene that has an interesting parallel to modern times, someone asks “If you weren’t Marilyn, who would you be?” This seems to be the question that Norma Jean is dealing with throughout the film. Identity is a theme as the public has a particular thought of who she is, the people in her life have an idea of who she is, but she is wrestling to be seen. Armas is able to channel the lack of confidence and search for identity while upholding the persona of Marilyn in a way that makes it clear why Marilyn Monroe was a polarizing and complicated person.
By the end of the nearly three hour running time however, we’re left with perhaps more questions than answers. Writer/director Andrew Dominik has glossy recreations of his troubled heroine’s life that shows the audience how the public’s gaze and view of Monroe caused her downfall; yet the question remains, what should we do with that information? So we’re left with a tragic victim of the world’s objectification of beauty, but no new revelation on who she was.
Rating: C+
