Blond on Netflix

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Watched it last night. Ana de Armas and Adrien Brody were great, and the music and costumes were good but otherwise it just wasn’t a good movie. The stuff with the fetuses and the “vagina cam” was just bizarre. It was dark and disturbing and reduced Marilyn to nothing but an abused piece of meat. Horrible. And when I read that the director really didn’t know anything about Marilyn or her movies, that settled it. Terrible.

This is why I won't be watching.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just finished and have a few thoughts.

1. It wasn’t nearly as graphic or disturbing as I was hearing. It’s certainly graphic for Netflix, but most of the scenes people are talking about are very quick, some are even blink and you miss it moments. The longest and IMO most disturbing one is with JFK.

2. A whole lot of whining about a Cuban accent I never detected! Did anyone else pick it up? Granted I was often multitasking and not giving this my full attention, but I didn’t hear it.

3. Slow, boring, art house movie, so I’d never watch it again. But it was beautifully shot and the score was phenomenal. Not like I’d listen to it separately, but for this it was very effective.

4. I have such mixed thoughts about fictionalizing real people. It’s art, ok, I don’t want to dictate what should or shouldn’t get made. But it’s not like a reimagined “What if…” of her life to see how things could’ve been different. It’s just “What if we force her into EVEN MORE traumatic events that never happened and rewrite entire parts of her life to make her suffer MORE?” It’s trauma porn and I feel gross having watched. But I knew what I was getting into there.

I don’t know that the story made her life worse. Accounts of both child and adult sexual abuse, foster care, and serious abortion/miscarriage/fertility issues and drug issues were real.
I am conflicted about whether stuff like this is trauma porn though. I do think social media, reality TV and all the fricking true crime podcasts has made me a lot more uncomfortable with writers and artists telling of other people’s real pain *without permission* than i used to feel, fictionalized or not.

I think they definitely added trauma — her mother trying to drown her, the throuple, rapes by both Mr. Z and JFK. There’s plenty about her life that’s traumatic without those added in.

Hmm good points.

More victim culture on steroids? Even tho who’s pushing that on famous, talented dead people?

[Anonymous]

After reading the reviews, it feels really disrespectful to the w the woman.
Too bad they didn’t just make it about a fictional actress from that time period.

[Anonymous]

Np, I tried watching this film but gave up at the 1-hour mark. It was boring, mildly disturbing, and challenging to follow. Although I've heard of Marilyn Monroe, I never really knew much about her and hoped the film would give a glimpse into who she was. It didn't. I still don't know who she was, and my takeaway is that film did not paint her in a good light at all.

Granted, had I stuck with the film until the end, I may have uncovered more about her, but it should not take a full hour to get to the point. I feel like I watched an hour of nothing, emptiness, and I did not connect with the character. Even the name of the film, "Blonde," could have done a better job of capturing who she was with a more impactful title. Or maybe "Blonde" does capture all she was. A flat title for a flat film.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Np, I tried watching this film but gave up at the 1-hour mark. It was boring, mildly disturbing, and challenging to follow. Although I've heard of Marilyn Monroe, I never really knew much about her and hoped the film would give a glimpse into who she was. It didn't. I still don't know who she was, and my takeaway is that film did not paint her in a good light at all.

Granted, had I stuck with the film until the end, I may have uncovered more about her, but it should not take a full hour to get to the point. I feel like I watched an hour of nothing, emptiness, and I did not connect with the character. Even the name of the film, "Blonde," could have done a better job of capturing who she was with a more impactful title. Or maybe "Blonde" does capture all she was. A flat title for a flat film.

It’s not a biopic, so you wouldn’t have learned facts anyway.

[Anonymous]

Most depressing and I was obsessed about Marilyn Monroe. This movie was so over the top 😭. Good actress , but it didn't make me want to know more about MM, the opposite?

[Anonymous]

Interesting.

The Elvis movie hinted at the victim he was of a selfish addict agent but gave him some loved ones and personal agency to take a break or change agents or stop the drugs.

MM had no outsiders to check in on her, except her therapist and his family. Which is another movie out there based on investigation tapes. This Mm bLonde movie is based on a fictional book and, unless Elvis- but similar to Elvis- paints MM as a tragic victim of the times and the industry.

No call to action in either movie. You could even walk away from the Mm show saying she was an insecure abused needy actress. Then there are other movies that paint her as a successful maneuverer and talented actress in Hollywood.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Most depressing and I was obsessed about Marilyn Monroe. This movie was so over the top 😭. Good actress , but it didn't make me want to know more about MM, the opposite?

Director and book author indeed might want just that: stop elevating Marilyn Monroe and start hating her.

[Anonymous]

Must make the director feel better to make movies that portray famous people as lunatics.

[Anonymous]

I went in with low expectations and the actress who played MM blew me away with her performance. It was clearly a dramatization of the real MM, but she embodied MM and her emotions were raw and real. What bothered me most was the directing. It felt disjointed and almost like each portion of her life was directed by a different director. The movie wasn't cohesive at all, but maybe that's what he was going for. The last part with her self-destructing at home before she died was probably the most powerful part of the film.

MM was treated like a piece of meat, so if that's your takeaway from the film, I think the film did its job. No one had MM's best interests in mind. She was used and abused by the industry and Arthur Miller maybe was the only who cared and even he couldn't save her from herself.

[Anonymous]

How real is is? Factual?

Because there was a lot of stuff I did not know. And while I know all of that abuse, rape, etc. happens (and certainly happens in Hollywood) I felt so horrible for her watching it. How much trauma that poor woman suffered in her life . . .

The actress who played Marilyn was terrific. Really superb.

[Anonymous]

The movie got delusional halfway through the 2nd marriage.
It went from a loving marriage to sudden personal demise. The director had her go off the rails due to miscarriages, sudden alcoholism, and drugs on the set.

Unclear if her absentee father even met her or sent any number of letters or if that was all dramatic effect narration.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The movie got delusional halfway through the 2nd marriage.
It went from a loving marriage to sudden personal demise. The director had her go off the rails due to miscarriages, sudden alcoholism, and drugs on the set.

Unclear if her absentee father even met her or sent any number of letters or if that was all dramatic effect narration.

It was Cass sending the letters as her father. That’s what the note meant when he left her the toy. And no, none of that happened in real life.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How real is is? Factual?

Because there was a lot of stuff I did not know. And while I know all of that abuse, rape, etc. happens (and certainly happens in Hollywood) I felt so horrible for her watching it. How much trauma that poor woman suffered in her life . . .

The actress who played Marilyn was terrific. Really superb.

Not much of it was real. There’s a bunch of fact v. fiction articles on this show if you want to dig into it. Most of this show was either based on unsubstantiated rumors (JFK affair, abortion, etc) or outright invented for the book/movie (throuple, letters from her “father”/Cass, etc.). The drug use and breakdowns on set are real.

[Anonymous]

Who’s Cass?