Today in my blog, I want to talk to you guys about the brand new Netflix original psychological drama film called Blonde. Blonde is written and directed by Andrew Dominic as the stars Ana de Armas in the lead role. This film's about a fictional Chronicle of the inner life of Marilyn Monroe.
Blonde is a brand new fictionalized Marilyn Monroe biopic that just hit Netflix past month. I am excited to talk about this one in particular because I have a lot to say about it like everybody else on the internet and everybody is so mixed about the movie.
Blonde Movie Review:
Coming into this film, I was ecstatic to check this movie out as this was my number one most anticipated film of September. As I have been here and so many talks about this movie and the fact that it got an NC17 rating and Ana de Armas just looks fantastic in the movie.
I wanted to watch this movie and see what I thought of it for myself. So, I checked it out the other night and I gotta say that I am straight down the middle on this film.
Unfortunately, there are so many aspects of this movie that could have been so great and well put together in another Marilyn Monroe movie. But how much of that was just exploiting Marilyn Monroe and the violent things that she experienced just for the sake of this fictionalized tale of her life?
Positive Aspects of Blonde Movie:
Let's just dive into some positives first because I do have a few positives here. I have to start with Ana de Armas playing Marilyn Monroe is excellent in this movie. As I totally lost her in this performance and I really think she should be nominated at the Oscars but she probably won't because of the mixed reception of this film.
I also found the cinematography and the directing to be really strong here as all the colors just match every single time that this movie jumps. I also love the framing of each shot that felt so detailed and dedicated and all the transition shots are very well executed. Sometimes the transition from one scene right into the next scene is so fluently that I had no idea how they were able to do it.
I also found the production design and costume design to be effective here as I truly thought that these characters were in the time that they should be. The blonde movie was able to create that magical immersion of being in this world due to the costumes just being so accurate to the time and having the production design be so great and Grand and having great visual effects.
Negative Aspects of Blonde Movie:
The first one has got to be how pretentious this movie is. I'm not the type of critic who likes to call out filmmakers for being pretentious as I think it's a word that is thrown around way too often from movies that are just really well made and trying to be artistically creative.
The biggest negative, I can give this movie has got to be the screenplay and the story because this is a fictionalized version of Marilyn Monroe, as it is based on a 2000 novel and I know this movie is trying to adapt that novel. I don't know much about the novel. I've never read it.
I don't feel like we ever get a lot of her character and her arc in this movie and we all know that she lived a very short-lived tragedy of life but when your whole movie is just focused on it. Especially when the film is around 2 hours and 45 minutes, it does make this movie just feel like a complete drag and it just was so uncomfortable that I just didn't want to watch the movie anymore.
Conclusion:
Overall, Blonde was a very disappointing film that has terrific filmmaking and a phenomenal performance by Ana de Armas. But with the story and the screenplay and the pretentiousness just filling this movie and exploiting Marilyn Monroe. I cannot recommend this movie unless you're interested in checking it out because of Ana de Armas.
Please, just don't watch it even if it is on Netflix. It's just not worth it. I'm giving blonde a 5 out of 10.
