Netflix Movie Review: Blonde

The only upside of the new Netflix movie “Blonde” is the realization that 60 years after Marilyn Monroe died, she is still relevant and producers are still making major motion pictures about her tragic life.

A childhood with no father and a mother who wound up in a mental institution, it is a fluke – even despite Monroe’s movie star looks, that she ever wound up as one of the most famous actresses in the history of film. The problem with the new Netflix biopic “Blonde” is that we all already knew about Marilyn Monroe’s tragic life – all this movie does is tell a well-known depressing story very badly. The other problem with Blonde is that the star of this movie Ana de Armas gives a performance so strong that it would have been nominated for an Academy Award – were it not for the fact that this movie is so bad. Like Whitney Houston, Marilyn Monroe did not have the thick skin necessary to deal with the harsh critics and constant pursuit of the paparazzi. It was Monroe's delicate personality that led to her tragic life, drug use and 3 divorces.

There is significant nudity in this movie by de Armas and at least one scene that was extremely inappropriate, considering the important aspects of Monroe’s tragic career. Monroe was married 3 times, the last marriage was to Joe Dimaggio and yet there was no mention of Dimaggio in this film – yet another major flaw. For some other odd reason, this film changes from black and white to color in several areas, adding another major annoyance that prevents this movie from being a respected biopic of Marilyn Monroe’s life. This film is also way too long, clocking in at 2 hours and 46 minutes – for a movie that should only be about 2 hours long.

The critics are unanimous across the board – giving very bad reviews to this film and low 42% ratings, with the IMDB ratings a very low 5.6. For me, it took several attempts to get through this mess, watching different parts over several days. Unfortunately this one is a big miss, despite de Armas impressive performance.