Directed by Australian Andrew Dominik (The Assassination of Jesse James), and starring Ana de Armas’ Blonde, looks set to be a killer biopic with zero sugar coating.
Adapted by Joyce Carol Oates’ Blonde, the Pulitzer-nominated bestselling historical novel that chronicles the inner life of Marilyn Monroe at the tail-end of her relationship with JFK.
Ana de Armas has transformed into one of the most iconic women to ever grace the Hollywood screen. The actor has taken on the role of Marilyn Monroe, which explores the icon’s relationship with the men in her life, most notably President John F Kennedy, and more controversially, “R.F”, the commander of the sharpshooter sent to eliminate Monroe.
If you are expecting a sweet and saccharine version of Monroe’s life, think again. There has been a lot of anticipation for this to come to the screen, not least of all due to some of Dominik’s directorial decisions to keep it R18+. The film is said to include a rape scene. “There’s something in it to offend everyone,” Dominik said in a recent interview with Vulture. “If the audience doesn’t like it, that’s the f***ing audience’s problem. It’s not running for public office.
He went on to say “It’s not like depictions of happy sexuality. It’s depictions of situations that are ambiguous. And Americans are really strange when it comes to sexual behaviour, don’t you think? I don’t know why. They make more porn than anyone else in the world.”
He contends that he hasn’t given that much thought to whether or not the film is going to offend the audience. “I don’t know. It’s dangerous to do other people’s thinking for them.” and says that he made what he would want to see, “Who knows? On the one hand, I think if I’m given the choice, I’d rather go and see the NC-17 version of the Marilyn Monroe story. Because we know that her life was on the edge, clearly, from the way it ended. Do you want to see the warts-and-all version or do you want to see that sanitized version?”
De Armas has declared in a recent post “the most daring, unapologetic, and feminist take on her story that I had ever seen.”
With a stellar cast of Adrien Brody as Arthur Miller and Bobby Cannavale as Joe DiMaggio, Blonde looks set to be quite an impressive film.
Blonde will be released on Netflix on September 23.
FIRST LOOK: Ana de Armas as ‘Marilyn Monroe’ in @netflix’s BLONDE pic.twitter.com/iMAOgUBwAQ
— Ana de Armas Updates (@ArmasUpdates) June 16, 2022
