Blonde review: Marilyn Monroe biopic is dull trauma porn with no idea what it’s trying to say
The IndependentGet our free weekly email for all the latest cinematic news from our film critic Clarisse Loughrey Get our The Life Cinematic email for free Get our The Life Cinematic email for free SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. 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. Based on Joyce Carol Oates’s sprawling 700-page novel, which offers a fictionalised version of Monroe’s life, the script consists of the star saying things like, “she’s pretty, I guess, but she isn’t me” or, “I guess there isn’t any Norma Jeane, is there”. The film flits between scenes in colour and black and white, inserting real events like her marriages and film roles, with invented ones, such as a threesome with Charlie Chaplin’s son and Edward G Robinson Jr. As Monroe, Ana de Armas has an edgy, nervous energy. Aside from some meticulously choreographed recreations of film scenes, some unimaginative looming paparazzi shots and some billboards, Monroe’s world feels hermetically sealed.