This controversial Netflix film about the life of Marilyn Monroe is bold and ambitious, and it is certainly no standard film-star biography, more of a feminist-filtered critique of the Hollywood star system and a deconstruction of the relationship between personality identity and the construction of a star. Starting on a particularly traumatic birthday in 1933, with Norma Jean as a young girl living with her disturbed and unstable mother, an unflinchingly dark and violent tone is set from the outset as we follow her through her difficult childhood through to her early casting-couch exploitation, her breakout stardom and beyond. With its shifting aspect ratios, changing use of colour/black-and-white and its unsettling score and placement of sound, Blonde is very effectively designed to reflect the unease and lack of control in the actress's personal and professional life, also seen in its blurring of actuality and fiction both in the constructed narrative and in Marilyn's mind in an hypnotic, almost hallucinatory manner. This is a long film (pushing towards three hours) that is relentless and often difficult to watch, portraying an unflinching depth of unhappiness and sadness, where Marilyn in assaulted, exploited and demeaned at every turn. With its key themes of identity, objectification and parent-child relationships constantly thrust to the fore, the film does feel as if at times it over-intellectualises the narrative at some points through stilted dialogue and odd emotional distancing, and whilst Ana de Armas undoubtedly gives a bravura performance, the actress is mostly (and somewhat repetitively) required to portray Marilyn in one of three ways: child-like, as the iconically-recognisable screen-star persona, or on the edge of tears. There is brave film-making on display here, making Blonde an interesting if flawed film that exploits Marilyn Monroe in its singular perspective perhaps as much as it suggests Hollywood did.
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