From her volatile childhood as Norma Jeane, through her rise to stardom and romantic entanglements, this reimagined fictional portrait of Hollywood legend Marilyn Monroe blurs the lines of fact and fiction to explore the widening split between her public and private selves.
Ratings
Curator score: 0.4/10
IMDb: 5.4/10
Letterboxd: 2.12/5
Rotten Tomatoes: 43%
Metacritic: 50
TMDB: 5.9/10
Director
Andrew Dominik
Production
Plan B Entertainment
Cast
Ana de Armas, Adrien Brody, Bobby Cannavale, Sara Paxton, Lucy DeVito, Julianne Nicholson, Scoot McNairy, Xavier Samuel, Caspar Phillipson, Evan Williams, Rebecca Wisocky, Toby Huss, Catherine Dent, Haley Webb, Dan Butler, Tygh Runyan, David Warshofsky, Michael Masini, Chris Lemmon, Ned Bellamy
Where to watch
Netflix, Netflix Standard with Ads
Curator Review
Verdict
A visually polished but emotionally punishing and often exploitative pseudo-biopic that turns Marilyn Monroe into an object of suffering more than a fully realized person. Its formal ambition is real, but the film’s approach to trauma, sexuality, and mythmaking is so abrasive that the result feels more punishing than illuminating.
Best for
Viewers interested in provocative, formally ambitious anti-biopics
Fans of psychologically intense, dreamlike cinema about celebrity and identity
People curious about one of the most controversial films of the 2020s
Skip if
You want a compassionate or balanced Marilyn Monroe portrait
You are sensitive to graphic sexual violence, reproductive trauma, or relentless degradation
You dislike films that blur fact and fiction in ways that feel exploitative rather than revelatory
Overview
Blonde is less a biopic than a fever dream of celebrity consumption, built around the widening gap between Norma Jeane and the image Hollywood sold the world. Andrew Dominik stages that split with striking visual control: the film is often gorgeous, unstable, and haunted, with Ana de Armas giving a committed performance inside a script that keeps stripping its subject of agency.
Worth noting
The problem is that the movie’s formal daring is inseparable from its cruelty. It lingers on humiliation, abuse, and bodily violation so insistently that the film begins to feel like an accusation against its own subject, or against the audience watching her suffer. That tension may be intentional, but it does not make the experience any less grueling.
Bottom line
For some viewers, the result will read as a severe critique of Hollywood’s appetite for female pain. For many others, it will feel like the very exploitation it claims to expose. The craft is undeniable, but the emotional and ethical cost is high, and the film’s provocations rarely pay off in insight.
Top Letterboxd reviews
Karsten (2★) · 13731 likes
i don’t know how i arrived at this but i’m blaming sam levinson
holges (1★) · 12290 likes
This is a Marilyn’s personal hell: where she dies and people keep making movies, documentaries and books about the worst moments of her life over and over again for decades – and we just live in it.
maïa (1.5★) · 7279 likes
fuck hollywood, fuck the patriarchy, fuck men and mostly fuck every single person that profits of marilyn monroe’s life
this woman has been through absolute hell and deserves to rest in peace
davidehrlich (2★) · 6690 likes
I’d always thought that Marilyn Monroe biopics would be so much better if they cruelly devoted several different scenes to her doomed CGI fetuses. starting to think I might have been wrong.
elvisthealien (1★) · 5564 likes
I hated almost everything about this. It gets +1/2 a star for some cool dreamy transitions here and there; and Ana De Armas' acting was mostly good. Everything else was distasteful. A torture porn compilation of Marilyn's most horrific moments. The worst part being, it's based on a book filled with falsehoods making Marilyn's life out to be far worse than it was. Another ironic capitalization of a woman's life which was, and continues to be, endlessly exploited; and this… more I hated almost everything about this. It gets +1/2 a star for some cool dreamy transitions here and there; and Ana De Armas' acting was mostly good. Everything else was distasteful. A torture porn compilation of Marilyn's most horrific moments. The worst part being, it's based on a book filled with falsehoods making Marilyn's life out to be far worse than it was. Another ironic capitalization of a woman's life which was, and continues to be, endlessly exploited; and this… more