Ana de Armas

Andrew Dominik's adaptation of Joyce Carol Oates's novel 'Blonde' is out on Netflix.

In Blonde, we gaze de Armas in wonderment rather than with lasciviousness, and forget the movie she is in. One of the foetuses even talks to Marilyn from inside the womb. The 167-minute film is singularly incurious about Marilyn’s involvement in her choices. The director even conceptualises a point-of-view shot of a doctor peering into Monroe’s innards – a pointless, not to mention deeply exploitative moment. The single-most powerful element of Blonde, which sustains it through banality, dime-store psychology and increasingly discomfiting moments of suffering, is its fearless lead actor. There are repeated graphic representations of the foetuses that Marilyn is unable to keep. Monroe continues to be the subject of study and speculation decades after she died of an accidental overdose of barbiturates in 1962. She’s ultimately just a girl, standing in front of a photograph of her lost father, asking him to find her. Blonde, in telling the story of the actor born as Norma Jean Baker, is an attempted study of personhood. The only man shown to treat Marilyn with fairness is her make-up artist Whitey (Toby Huss). Blonde has emerged in the middle of a fierce debate over abortion rights in the United States. Marilyn finds that the “dumb blonde” image insisted upon by producers makes it difficult for her to be taken seriously.

Andrew Dominik's 'Blonde' clocks at 166 minutes and feels almost twice as long. Some of the early reviews disparagingly called the movie 'misery porn' or ...

But as far as films on public figures go, it has nothing substantial or compelling to say that would make it a film worthy of Monroe. 'Blonde' is not a bad film. In short, 'Blonde' is not a biopic, clinging to the alleged truthfulness of the events like many biopics inevitably do. 'Blonde' is also a good-looking movie. Monroe is a figure that a film based on her life would feel lacking if her glorious and tragic life was not depicted in its unvarnished form. Due to accounts of her life, we know that beneath the glittering, smiling exterior, she was a mentally ill, lonely wreck of a woman.

There have been several movies that have recounted the life of iconic actor Marilyn Monroe, but it's hard to think of one that seems to be so disrespectful ...

The ones that are most jarring are Monroe's interactions with the men in her life, from husband Joe DiMaggio (Bobby Cannavale) to President John. But Dominik doesn't even let her enjoy that; instead, this is where the starlet starts to self-destruct. Though that has been a point of contention since the movie's trailer came out, I was completely transfixed on every word she delivered. But despite the movie being top-notch in everything from its production design, costuming, make-up, and cinematography, Dominik doesn't give the movie much of a narrative thread. Dominik leans in heavily on how the early days of celebrity culture and the industry itself ate up Monroe, which is true. If you have little knowledge of her, please do not go into this movie thinking you will find a traditional biopic retelling of her life.

Blonde is uplifted by a passionate performance by Ana de Armas, but it isn't interested in Norma Jeane so much as it is in her pain and suffering.

It’s a film that takes pleasure in Monroe’s pain, indulging in it for too-long periods of time, uninterested in actually pulling back the curtain to study anything more about her. It’s intriguing and compelling, to be sure, and it’s a shame the film is never willing to go beyond the surface. Dominik’s film insists that Norma Jeane’s bad experiences with men is linked to having grown up with an absent father. The film includes her second and third marriages to Joe DiMaggio (Bobby Cannavale, as the Ex-Athlete) and playwright Time away from the spotlight, meanwhile, showcases Norma Jeane at her most vulnerable emotionally, as audiences witness the numerous traumas she experienced. And while Blonde is uplifted by a passionate performance by Ana de Armas, it isn’t interested in the life of Norma Jeane Mortensen so much as it is in the pain and suffering she faced.

Blonde Twitter Review and Reactions: Ana De Armas stars in the Netflix biopic on Marilyn Monroe. The movie is thought to earn Armas her first Oscar ...

Fans who have been able to watch the movie have been sharing their reviews of it. There have been mixed responses to the film, but unanimous praise for Armas and how she has delivered in the demanding and challenging role. Now, as the film started to stream on the digital platform, many viewers have been sharing their opinion on it.

"Blonde" Makeup and hair crew on how they transformed Ana de Armas into Marilyn Monroe.

“The gray is painted into their hair to make them more distinguished.” She adds, “There are silvery streaks painted in, and when you look at the original, you think, ‘Why would they do that?’ So we had to copy that.” In recreating “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend” from “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes,” Kerwin mixed a fuchsia lip with red. Says Kerwin, “We needed something sturdy that could hold up with the gluing and ungluing of wigs.” “It changed the eye shape,” Kerwin explains. It gave us a chance to figure out what worked better in black and white as opposed to color,” explains Kerwin. The shoot session was done before principal filming began, and it helped immensely since they would have to recreate many of Monroe’s most iconic moments.

Ana de Armas completely transforms into Marilyn Monroe in the film 'Blonde.' The hair, makeup, and costume departments tell ELLE.com how it was done.

Even with all the costume changes, Johnson says it felt like de Armas wore those vintage check pants daily, and since there was only one pair, she “was praying they were not going to dissolve.” The authentic 1950s garment from [Palace Costume](https://www.palacecostume.com/history) “fit like a glove.” “I have photographs of her that day at the Plan B office, and there’s Marilyn,” she says. Kerwin provided the additional makeup artists with lip palettes they had made to deliver a consistent visual: “We had put in all the orange reds, they had all the blue reds, and so when the background came in, we had mapped out what was going to work for color or black and white.” That is the most important thing to get there and not just stick a costume on her.” One area Johnson decided to ditch early on was padded foundation garments. Gowns, furs, and glamorous on-set ensembles are a fraction of the costume story being told in Blonde, which has a “sense of naturalism” that Johnson notes is the focus of the novel and Dominik’s direction. “They had her on the monitor, and the actual footage [from Some Like It Hot] on the monitor next to it,” McIntosh recalls. The two formats impact the choice of makeup, and the “biggest thing to figure out was the lip colors” because some pop, whereas others fade away. A couple of days of testing was required to “find out what worked, what didn’t and to find our Marilyn in Ana,” says Kerwin about her expressive lashes. During production, they were shaved down by Kerwin and then bleached every couple of days, which took some getting used to [for the star](https://youtu.be/BOa89RpMYf0?t=221): “Ana has beautiful brows, and it was a shock for her to see herself in the newly thinned out blonde brow.” Western Costume cobbler Mauricio Osorio came up with a workaround that required excellent quality shoes to use as a foundation that “Ana loves, are comfortable, and have the correct shape and height.” Johnson turned to The RealReal to get a pair of Manolo Blahniks that are “still quite expensive but saved us from having to make the shoe from the ground up.” The guts of the shoe are still Manolos: “He basically rips the whole shoe apart, takes the top off, and rips the leather off the heel. Using prosthetics instead of a bald cap “so we could see scalp through the wigs.” Kerwin explains that after applying the prosthetic pieces, “it was all airbrushed to be the same color, and then the blonde wigs would sit on what was looking like skin.” It is here that Monroe’s hair was dyed its famous shade (ditto Lucille Ball’s signature hue) and this snapshot of Tinseltown was the first stop on “Team Marilyn’s train.” As well as recreating images, Dominik also shot on location at Monroe’s famous haunts, including Musso and Frank’s and the house she shared with Arthur Miller.

Blonde directed by Andrew Dominik is a fictionalized version of the life of Norma Jeane aka Marilyn Monroe based on the book by Joyce Carol Oates and ...

In the end, we are left with a portrayal of the iconic actress this does not feel three-dimensional. While it does feel like I am bashing this movie all lot, it does a lot of positives the first being And while it is important to show the abuse that Marilyn and almost all actresses went threw in the "Golden Age of Hollywood", it feels less impactful because is based on a work of fiction and the overall approach of the movie.

Ana de Armas expertly brings forward the excrutiating trauma hidden beneath the bombshell exterior of Marilyn Monroe in Blonde, but Andrew Dominik drowns it ...

Ana is able to consummately bring forward Norma Jeane's pain through the character named Marilyn Monroe, a recurring narrative arc in Blonde, even in times when it seems as though she's at her happiest. Blonde excels, in parts, where the aesthetic doesn't matter and the primary focus is Ana de Armas' Marilyn Monroe. Getting the physicality to a T, right up to her iconic million-dollar smile, even Armas' accent is a tribute to Norma Jeanes' innocence. And equally to blame is the overzealous need to pit Monroe through one horrifying incident with a man, after another, from domestic violence to casting, channelling the very sexual craze Marilyn was subjected to her entire career. In Blonde, Marilyn is constantly stripped through a male-dominated microscope - both physically and mentally - whether it be the Hollywood biggies - like Fox executive Darryl F. Right from her troubled childhood with Lily Fisher being dynamite as a young Norma Jeane, being tortured both physically and mentally by her unstable mother Gladys (a terrific Julianne Nicholson!) - who drives her straight through a fire-ridden Hollywood to almost drowning her in the bathtub - to her constant quest for an abandoned father through the many "creepy, ugly" love interests in her life, you're left feeling uncomfortable for Marilyn Monroe in the two hours and 47 minutes duration with every hypersexualised, provocative scene.

Andrew Dominik's adaptation of Joyce Carol Oates novel is a morbid, leering and tasteless abasement.

This goes double during a scene when Monroe is filming the subway-grate shot in “The Seven Year Itch,” during which his camera lingers and leers with unsavory insistence. There are short clips of her work in such classics as “All About Eve,” “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes” and “Some Like It Hot,” but Dominik never allows de Armas to convey her character’s exquisite comic timing, superb physical grace or shrewdness. She certainly deserves more than a dumb “Blonde.” That scene ends with a rape that can’t help but conjure images of Harvey Weinstein and the “casting couch” tradition he so brutally perpetuated. Kennedy (Caspar Phillipson), who features in one of the film’s many tasteless scenes, in this case of Monroe performing oral sex while he watches a rocket launch on TV. The rest of “Blonde” continues apace, with Monroe encountering creepy, dismissive or outright violent men who continually underestimate and betray her.

Transforming Ana de Armas into Marilyn Monroe for Netflix's new biopic Blonde was a team effort. Here's how Tina Roesler Kerwin, Jennifer Johnson, ...

There’s a humor and a whims whimsy to his costumes and a lightness to the spirit of his designs. We were trying to figure out how William Travilla made that moment work in a column dress with a big bow on the back and we learned that when he was working on the dress, he borrowed pool table fabric from the art department at Fox Studios next door. He got a bolt of green felt and backed the dress with that. I actually haven't seen the dress since we made the film in 2019 and I would love to look at it again because I think that it's probably a bit garish in person. Also wearing pants was really important in the movie, so your gaze would be taken away from her body and would be really placed on her interior—on her mental workings, on her intellect, on her psychological state. So I was able to push it a little bit further than Tina was because I didn't have those restrictions." Jamie-Leigh would also help sell some of the more casual looks with the movement and the wave of the hair." Finding that shape, that texture and that hairstyle was a challenge." You still want it to have the hold and the style without losing the softness, so it can look touchable." But overall, very little product because the more product that's in the hair, the more it can tend to start looking helmet-y and not move naturally. The blonde wig did not work on Ana’s hair so I had to put three prosthetic pieces underneath the wigs to give her a half bald cap so that the blonde wigs looked like they were actually sitting on skin. There are so many different Marilyns, so we needed to find a baseline, an image that you see most of her.

The fictional biopic of Marilyn Monroe has steadily accumulated its fair share of controversy--and now you can see for yourself what the buzz has been ...

She also recently discussed the future of the James Bond series, saying [Bond should not be played by a woman](https://www.gamespot.com/articles/there-is-no-need-for-female-bond-ana-de-armas-says/1100-6505704/). [Empire](https://www.empireonline.com/movies/news/marilyn-monroe-movie-blonde-create-controversy-says-ana-de-armas-exclusive/) over the summer, "It's a film that is supposed to create controversy and discomfort." "It's supposed to make you think about what happened--and what is still happening," de Armas said. It tells the story of how a woman, Norma Jeane Baker, became the incredibly popular celebrity Marilyn Monroe in the '50s and '60s. The movie is not a traditional biopic however, as it blurs the lines between fact and fiction, Netflix said. Netflix's Marilyn Monroe movie, Blonde, which stars Ana de Armas in the lead role, is now available to stream.

Ana de Armas is scintillating in a film that tells the story of pop-culture icon Marilyn Monroe, but 'Blonde' hardly explores who Norma Jeane truly is ...

(Evan Williams) and Cass Chaplin (Xavier Samuel), the son of Charlie Chaplin, are also dwelt upon. It dips into the imagined psyche of a woman who represented different things to people of all races, gender and sexual orientation. While wanting to look at the life of Marilyn Monroe and the reason for her enduring legend, Blonde lingers on the luscious curves, the tear-filled eyes, the wet pout, and the many men who exploited her, but not telling us anything about the woman inside.