Film / Blonde

"Marilyn Monroe only exists on the screen."

"I know you're supposed to get used to it. But I just can't. I've played Marilyn Monroe, Marilyn Monroe, Marilyn Monroe. I can't face doing another scene with Marilyn Monroe."

— Norma Jeane

Blonde is a 2022 American biographical fiction psychological film directed and written by Andrew Dominik. Based off Joyce Carol Oates's 2000 historical fiction novel Blonde, the film is a fictionalized take on the life of Marilyn Monroe, portrayed by Ana de Armas. The cast also includes Adrien Brody as Arthur Miller, Bobby Cannavale as Joe DiMaggio, Julianne Nicholson as Gladys Pearl Baker, Caspar Phillipson as John F. Kennedy and Toby Huss as Allan "Whitey" Snyder.

The film's release on Netflix is noteworthy in that it is the first on the streaming platform to carry an NC-17 rating. It received a brief limited theatrical release starting on September 14, 2022^note (making it qualifiable for the Oscars) before Netflix on September 28, 2022.

Previews: Teaser, Trailer.

---

Blonde contains examples of:

• Abortion Fallout Drama: Norma Jeane has two abortions, but constantly refers to what "she killed her baby" for and wishes she hadn't.
• Abusive Parents: Gladys is clearly mentally unstable and this leads to her treating her daughter terribly. At one point, she nearly drowns a seven-year-old Norma Jeane in the bathtub for asking about her father one too many times, and shortly after that, she's taken to a mental hospital after having been declared unfit to raise a child.
• Actor IS the Title Character: The poster indicates "Ana de Armas is Marilyn Monroe".
• Addled Addict: As she gets more miserable and unstable when filming Some Like It Hot, Norma Jeane begins taking pills to cope. Come 1962, she's become a full-blown addict and eventually dies of an overdose.
• All Psychology Is Freudian: Norma is depicted as being continuously motivated to seek fame as an actress by her distant mother, who was obsessed with the memory of her father, and a quest to find her father who was described by her mother as a Hollywood bigwig and actor.
• Aspect Ratio Switch: Aspect ratios alternate depending on whether Norma/Marilyn is acting, where she is, and if there's a flashback to her youth.
• Babies Make Everything Better: Norma Jeane is shown to believe this firmly, telling Arthur Miller that their relationship would have lasted if she'd had their baby.
• Beneath the Mask: To Norma Jeane, Marilyn Monroe is just a persona she puts on for acting and public appearances, and not her true self. She feels disconnected when she watches herself in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and insists that her husbands call her Norma. When she has a particularly violent outburst on the set on of Some Like It Hot, her makeup artist has to calm her down and "bring back Marilyn" while she looks in the mirror and begs for Marilyn to come back.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Joe DiMaggio, as behind the facade of a Lovable Jock, is a rancorously jealous Domestic Abuser Jerk Jock who abuses Norma/Marilyn out of Slut-Shaming for her public status as a Ms. Fanservice.
• Call-Back:
  • Relatively early on, while Norma Jeane, Cass and Eddy are walking together, they find a stuffed tiger, which becomes sort of a memento of their relationship. At the end, she gets that tiger back in a box from the deceased Cass, an event that leads directly to her suicide.
  • In one of the opening scenes, Norma Jeane's mother gives her a framed picture of a random man as a birthday present, and tells her that it's her father. At the end, as Norma is dying of a drug overdose, she hallucinates that same man taking her to the afterlife, imagining him to be her father.
• Casting Gag:
  • Jack Lemmon (and by extension, Lemmon as Daphne in Some Like It Hot) is played by his real-life son Chris Lemmon, who bears a strong resemblance to his father.
  • In the Japanese dub, this is not the first time that Nana Mizuki (Marilyn Monroe) had voiced characters being brutally raped, except this time, the rape scene happens on-screen; likewise, she also previously voiced another blonde girl being fetishised by her peers and suffering for it.
• Darker and Edgier: Than the 2001 adaptation, which while naturally having numerous uncomfortable and disturbing scenes given the novel it was based on, contained fewer scenes of sexual assault, less nudity, and a perkier Marilyn than Blonde 2022's Marilyn who is usually either crying or looks like she's about to cry.
• Deliberately Monochrome: Parts are in black and white, while others are in color, more or less at random—a black and white scene where Norma meets Cass and Eddy is followed by a color scene of their threesome, and a color scene of Arthur Miller on the streets of New York flips to black in white as Miller goes into an acting studio. The reason for this is unclear although it may be because Monroe became a star at the time Hollywood was shifting over to color in a big way, so some of her films are in black and white while others are in color.
• Depraved Bisexual: Cass and Eddy are portrayed as manipulating Norma into porn (in which they have sex with her and each other), blackmail Joe about it, and then Cass simultaneously comforts and torments Norma through letters, revealing the truth that he wrote them and ultimately causing her death.
• Despair Event Horizon: Norma Jeane hurtles right over it when she discovers the truth behind her "father"'s letters.
• Disappeared Dad: Norma Jeane never knew her father, which is one of the main reasons why she's so screwed-up. This heavily impacts her romantic relationships: Cass and Eddy, who have spent their entire lives in the shadows of their much more famous fathers, find her lack of one to be liberating, and she refers to her husbands as "Daddy" and clings to them emotionally. The letters she receives from a man claiming to be her father are one of the few happinesses of her life and learning that Cass actually wrote them is what causes the fatal overdose that leads to her death.
• Dissolve: Norma Jeane is clutching the edge of a bed a man has sex with her from behind. The edge of the bed then dissolves into Niagara Falls, while Norma Jeane is still on top of it. Then Norma Jeane fades away and the movie transitions to the next scene, her invokedStar-Making Role in Niagara.
• Distant Prologue: The first 15 minutes are set in the early 1930s and show little Norma Jeane with her mentally ill mother, who is institutionalized, followed by Norma Jeane being sent to an orphanage. Then the film skips forward over a decade to find Norma Jeane as an adult played by Ana de Armas, finding modeling work.
• Domestic Abuse: After Joe finds some nude publicity photos that Norma Jeane did, he hits her and tells her not to do The Seven Year Itch. She does it anyways, and when she comes home after doing the Marilyn Maneuver scene, Joe, who has been drinking, screams at her and gets physically abusive. She divorces him shortly thereafter.
• Downer Ending: In this case, a Foregone Conclusion. Norma Jeane, upon learning that Cass was the one who wrote all of the letters that were supposedly from her father, is so shattered by this that she overdoses on pills and dies alone in her home, all while having a hallucination of the father that she never knew taking her to the afterlife.
• Dr. Feelgood: One scene shows a doctor on the set of Some Like It Hot who is only too willing to give Norma Jeane some Benzedrine after she has a freak out.
• Facecam:
  • Used for the scene where DiMaggio enters the house, twitching with rage, and goes looking for Norma Jeane after being confronted with old nude photos of her.
  • Done again for a scene where Norma Jeane is stumbling through the house, both drunk and high on pills, while Arthur Miller trails behind her expressing concern.
• Fan Disservice: The ridiculously beautiful Ana de Armas plays one of the most notoriously beautiful women in history, frequently bares all, and yet the context renders it tremendously upsetting instead of titillating. One dramatic example of this is when DiMaggio comes home, finds Norma Jeane wearing nothing but a pair of panties, and backhands her across the face–he has just been confronted with Cass and Eddy's old nude photos of Norma.
• Flashback Cut: When DiMaggio casually asks where Norma Jeane got her start, there's a quick cut back to her being raped by Darryl F. Zanuck, who then gave her her first big part in All About Eve.
• For the Evulz: Why, why, why does Cass spend a decade writing letters to Norma Jeane, pretending to be her father, only to send her a letter after his death telling her that all the letters were fake?
• Go into the Light: Symbolically, at the end of the film where there is a bright light shining down from a skylight while Norma, down below, is dying from an overdose of drugs.
• Good-Times Montage: The film contains a montage of Norma Jeane and Arthur's happy life in Maine after they get married. However, the good times don't last very long after that.
• Headbutt of Love: Between Norma Jeane and Joe DiMaggio, although it's subverted by how it comes immediately after her accepting his marriage proposal with a "Yes, I guess."
• Historical Figures in Archival Media: Ana de Armas as Marilyn is digitally inserted into a clip of All About Eve, the real Marilyn's first big part, in a scene with the real George Sanders. A later scene has her digitally inserted into Some Like It Hot opposite Tony Curtis.
• Historical Villain Upgrade: There is no evidence that President Kennedy or Charlie Chaplin Jr. raped Marilyn Monroe or tricked her into thinking her dad was writing to her, respectively.
• Hope Spot: After her previous relationships were dysfunctional and unhappy, Norma Jeane's marriage to Arthur Miller is portrayed as a rare moment of bliss in her life, with hope that he could truly be the one. Of course, it doesn't last.
• Marilyn Maneuver: Marilyn is photographed with her white dress being lifted by a gust of air in the teaser, just like when the real one famously stood over a subway vent in The Seven Year Itch.
• Match Cut:
  • From Norma Jeane deranged mother rubbing her hands together in the insane asylum, to Norma Jeane rubbing her hands together, in character as a deranged babysitter as she shoots a scene from Don't Bother to Knock.
  • Stars in the sky cut to a shot of wriggling sperm. Norma Jeane has gotten impregnated through her throuple relationship with Charlie Chaplin Jr. and Edward G. Robinson Jr.
• Moody Trailer Cover Song: The teaser is set to a moody and slower reprise of "Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend", the upbeat song performed by Marilyn in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (the music number of which with the pink dress is also at least partially recreated in the film, as seen in the teaser).
• My Girl Is Not a Slut: Joe DiMaggio is both horribly jealous and an abusive asshole, which is why he backhands Norma Jeane after Cass and Eddy try to blackmail him with old nudie photos of her. He loses his shit again and beats her worse after he watches her filming the Marilyn Maneuver from The Seven-Year Itch.
• Naked Nutter: Norma Jeane's mother, first topless and then totally nude, in a scene where she attempts to drown Norma Jeanne in the bathtub before setting fire to the apartment.
• Never Sent Any Letters: Norma receives letters from her Disappeared Dad, alternately praising and Slut-Shaming her. The final straw that leads to her completely losing her mind, and either overdosing accidentally or deliberately, is that her onetime best friend - Cass Chaplin - reveals that her "father" in the letters didn't exist, heavily implying that he wrote them himself.
• No Name Given: Norma Jeane's husbands Joe DiMaggio and Arthur Miller are never named out loud onscreen. In the credits, Bobby Cannavale is listed as "Ex-Athlete" while Adrien Brody is listed as "The Playwright". The only time either of them is named is when Arthur Miller's name appears in written text about his and Marilyn's marriage.
  • "Mr. Z", the film executive who rapes Norma Jeane the aspiring starlet, is strongly implied to be legendary producer Darryl F. Zanuck.
• Nothing Is Scarier: Most of Joe's Domestic Abuse of Norma Jeane following the famous publicity stunt she did with the white dress for The Seven Year Itch is never seen, leaving audiences to fill the gaps on what happened, but based on what's heard it was plenty ugly.
• Offscreen Moment of Awesome: Arthur Miller sits down to watch Norma Jeane rehearse a character named Magda in one of his plays. He scornfully mutters "Not my Magda." Cut to after Marilyn's performance, when everyone else in the studio is giving her a standing ovation while Miller weeps.
• Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping: Ana des Armas's Cuban accent slips through on and off throughout her performance.
• Painful Persona: The film is a biopic about Norma Jeane Mortenson, a lovely blonde girl who is catapulted into stardom, and given the stage name Marilyn Monroe. Though the cameras and the press see a happy Marilyn loving the spotlight, in quieter moments, Marilyn longs to return to being Norma Jeane: a simple girl living peacefully settled down with hearth and home. "Marilyn doesn't exist. When I come out of my dressing room, I'm Norma Jeane."
• Polyamory: One of Norma Jeane's first relationships is a three-way one with Charles Chaplin Jr. and Edward G. Robinson Jr. It should be noted that there is no real-life evidence of this ever happening. (At least the threesome part, although Chaplin did claim in his 1960 book that he dated Monroe for a while when she was an up-and-coming starlet.)
• Pop-Star Composer: Nick Cave and Warren Ellis did the musical score as they previously did for Dominik's film, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford.
• Rape as Drama:
  • Norma Jeane is shown being raped by a studio executive only known as "Mr. Z" (implied to be Darryl F. Zanuck) before he casts her in All About Eve.
  • Later, a drugged-up Norma Jeane is all but kidnapped and brought to President Kennedy, who forces her to perform oral sex on him.
• Repeat Cut: Done several times during the recreation of the Marilyn Maneuver scene, obviously to make it look as gross and exploitative as possible, with Marilyn beaming as her skirt flips up while men leer at her.
• Seamless Scenery: A drugged-out Norma Jeane rises unsteadily from her seat in an airplane and steps into an aisle, and she is then in the aisle of a movie theater.
• Shown Their Work: Many of the shots in the film duplicate famous pictures of the real Marilyn, like how this shot◊ from the film of Marilyn and Arthur Miller is a re-staging of this actual photo◊ of Monroe and Miller. Additionally, there is a surreal, dreamlike sequence where Norma Jeane gets out of bed naked, only to be taken away by some strange men who force her to have a second abortion of what is presumably John F. Kennedy's baby. The beginning of this scene where Norma Jeane is face-down on her pillow is a duplication of the infamous shot of Marilyn's corpse taken in her bed, after she was found on August 5, 1962.
• Something Else Also Rises: Norma Jeane is giving a handjob to John F. Kennedy while a television plays in the corner of a hotel room. The TV shows a missile being raised to launch position and a naval gun being raised to fire. Then the moment where Kennedy ejaculates is shown by a ray hitting a spaceship on the TV (apparently it's some cheap sci-fi movie playing).
• Stepford Smiler: Marilyn is distraught, crying and praying for someone to come back while she's in her dressing room for makeup. She then forces herself to smile and laugh. This same thing becomes a recurring motif as she descends further into addiction.
• A Threesome Is Hot: The first of the sex scenes that earned this film an NC-17 rating shows Norma Jeane in a passionate three-way with Charlie Chaplin Jr. and Edward G. Robinson Jr.
• Trauma Conga Line: Poor Norma Jeane goes through traumatic experience after traumatic experience, from an abusive and unstable mother, working in an industry that sees her as a sex symbol and nothing else, multiple failed relationships, several miscarriages and abortions, and a pill addiction that costs her her life.
• Very Loosely Based on a True Story: The film is not actually a biopic, but is based on Joyce Carol Oates's novel, which was itself billed as historical fiction.
  • Despite the many rumors surrounding the two, to the point of entering pop culture, there's no hard evidence that Marilyn Monroe ever had a sexual relationship with John F. Kennedy, let alone this film's particular claim that she was kidnapped and brought to him to be forced to perform oral sex on him.
  • There is also no evidence that Marilyn ever had an abortion, although she had two miscarriages and an ectopic pregnancy. It is speculated being unable to carry a child to term lead to her depression and eventual overdose.
  • Strictly speaking, the identity of Marilyn's father wasn't a mystery; her mother's second husband Martin Mortensen is the name on her birth certificate. (Although DNA analysis 60 years after Marilyn's death indicated that another man might have been her father.)
  • The three-way relationship between Norma, Cass Chaplin, and Eddy Robinson is an invention of Joyce Carol Oates, although Cass Chaplin did claim that he and Norma dated for a while while she was an up-and-coming star. Also, this film has Cass dying before Norma, while the real Charlie Chaplin Jr. died in 1968, six years after her death.
• Voiceover Letter: Throughout the latter half of the film there are periodic voiceover letters from a man purporting to be Norma's father, letters that are usually tenderly emotional but sometimes oddly veer into slut-shaming. The end reveals that they were actually written by Cass.
• What the Hell Is That Accent?: Ana des Armas's accent switches between being an eerily accurate rendition of Marilyn Monroe's voice at times to using her natural Cuban accent, to the point of seeming like Not Even Bothering with the Accent at times.

---

♫ Men grow cold
As girls grow old
And we all lose our charms in the end
But square-cut or pear-shaped
These rocks don't lose their shape
Diamonds are a girl's best friend. ♫