The upcoming Marilyn Monroe movie, Blonde, has something that will offend everyone, according to director Andrew Dominik. The acclaimed filmmaker is known for writing and directing The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford and Killing Them Softly, both of which star Brad Pitt. Dominik is now heading in a slightly different direction for his fourth feature film with a fictionalized biopic of Marilyn Monroe, the iconic actress and sex symbol famous for playing comedic "blonde bombshell" characters throughout the 1950s before her tragic death in 1962.
No Time to Die star Ana de Armas leads the cast of Blonde as Norma Jean/Marilyn Monroe. Bobby Cannavale stars as the legendary New York Yankee Joe DiMaggio, Monroe's second husband, Adrien Brody as the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Arthur Miller, her third husband, and Caspar Phillipson as President John F. Kennedy, whom the actress has a lengthy history with. Blonde made history as the first Netflix original film to receive a NC-17 rating and now, its writer and director is opening up about what to expect from the explicit biopic.
In an interview with Vulture, Dominik responded to Blonde's NC-17 rating, saying he was surprised by it. However, the director ultimately thinks the rating is befitting, as the biopic is an unflinching portrait of Monroe's life and struggles rather than a watered-down version. Additionally, Dominik describes Blonde as a film that "swims in very ambiguous waters" and has "something in it to offend everyone.” Read his full comment below:
"It’s an interesting time for Blonde to come out. If it had come out a few years ago, it would have come out right when Me Too hit and it would have been an expression of all that stuff. We’re in a time now, I think, where people are really uncertain about where any lines are. It’s a film that definitely has a morality about it. But it swims in very ambiguous waters because I don’t think it will be as cut-and-dried as people want to see it. There’s something in it to offend everyone."
Dominik adapted Blonde from the Joyce Carol Oates' novel of the same name, which provides an account of Monroe's private life that the author admits is purely fictional and should not be regarded as a factual biography. Thus, this gave the Blonde filmmaker plenty of creative license when crafting the fictionalized biopic. For the crux of the story, Dominik opted to focus on Monroe's childhood as an orphan and how being an unwanted child shaped her during her later years as a celebrity, which she ultimately struggled to handle.
Based on Dominik's comment, it seems Blonde's most offensive elements may pertain to its depiction of sexual behavior in Hollywood during the 1950s. These scenes may be judged more harshly or received differently by modern audiences when seen through the lens of the #MeToo era. Regardless, it will certainly be interesting to see what potentially "offensive scenes" Blonde features, and how audiences will react to de Armas' portrayal of the beloved icon.
Source: Vulture