Blonde

Blonde is truly one of the most perplexing films I've ever had to write a review for. Even as of writing this, I'm not entirely sure where I stand on the thing as a whole and every time I narrow in on one score, I come up with multiple counterpoints against it. 

Just reading that sentence alone, I half believe that was the entire point: to confuse, to mesmerize, to leave you in mystery...regardless of my final score, it's a film that deserves dissecting and not one I'm soon to forget.

Blonde is the NC-17 biopic about Marilyn Monroe based on the novel of the same name. In case you've been living under a rock, it stars Ana de Armas as the early-Hollywood starlet who is eerie in her transformation. I know the book is mostly historical fact, with some fiction, so I did some research of my own afterwards and the broad strokes of Marilyn's life are here. 

But there's also so much missing and - perhaps the most unforgivable sin of the film - I'm not sure I learned a whole lot about her. 

Much of that is because Blonde is a disjointed mess of a narrative, but that's not as bad of a thing in reality as the sentence reads on the page. The disjointedness and hopping around (I didn't find it as chronologically confusing as some others have stated) feels completely intentional to mirror the disjointed and messy woman it was based upon. It both hurts and helps the film - I told you this was complicated AF - because it allows the film to flow to the beat of its own drummer. It ebbs, flows, and claws its way from one scene to the next without much regard for caring if you know what's going on. Frustrating at first, I eventually just "gave up" and went along for the ride, feeling almost like I was on a drug trip that wasn't of my choosing. 

Blonde primarily focuses on Marilyn's difficulties in life and rarely takes time to celebrate her successes. She accomplished a lot, though the film would argue that's all hidden behind her sex symbol persona indefinitely, which I'm not sure I agree with. Even still, this is a tough film to watch, but even tougher to look away from. My wife, who [mostly] disliked it, even stated that she couldn't stop watching across our 3 separate viewing sessions (it's been a busy week!). It's not hard to watch because of it's NC-17 rating (honestly, that rating feels like a stunt more than anything else), but rather because our core character's story is hardship after hardship. Life starts rough, she gets famous, and it largely becomes even rougher. I won't go into all the details, but this is a very depressing look at the icon and how her life was lived. 

Much like these scene, so too is my wavering opinion of Blonde

Similar to our editing and pacing, the filmmaking is nonsensical which feeds into the complexity of "is this artsy fartsy film actually good?" There are aspect ratio changes, color, black-and-white, speed differences, and more camera tricks. I give an incredible amount of awe to the fact that director Andrew Dominik was swinging for the fences here, leaving almost no idea unaccomplished, but I couldn't tell you the reasoning for anything. Black-and-white vs. color seems to have no pattern of when they're used, nor does the aspect ratio...but I'll emphasize: I couldn't look away. It works to an outrageous degree, but also frustrates. 

The only two utterly fantastic constants in Blonde are de Armas and the original score. The latter is honestly so unique, haunting, and beautiful that I may chalk it up as the "glue" that holds this chaos together. It's trance-like. Similarly, Ana de Armas turns in a tour-de-force performance that asks a lot of her and she meets the challenges. She transforms into Monroe, breathing life into her smile, her laugh, and her horrors. Other performances in the film are fine, but sit in a long shadow of de Armas who's on screen nearly 100% of the time. It's award worthy, without question. 

As I reflect back on the 20 minutes it took to write this review, it's clear I was passionate about the film. It's rare that I can pump out a review so quickly and effortlessly but there's just so much to say about Blonde as a film. It's honestly why I still love this hobby so much: because it creates discussion and disagreement. Even still, not quite knowing my feelings about it is wild, as I'm usually someone that has my mind made up about these things. At the end of it all, Blonde is like a piece of art that you're not sure if it's fantastic or awful, and you get to a point where you realize you may never fully make up your mind.

CONS

• Leaves me in mystery about the woman, even after 3 hours. There's so much (good stuff) they don't cover
• Sporadic in every sense of the word. For some/many, this may be a huge turnoff
• Obviously too long at nearly 3 hours, but I honestly could have watched an hour more
• At times, feels pretentiously artsy-fartsy for the sake of it

PROS

• Somehow the chaos works? It creates its own trance and moves to its own clock, but I couldn't stop watching
• Ana de Armas' performance is one that will sit as one of the very bests at the end of her career. Transformative
• The jury is still out, but the original score may not just be the best of the year, but one of the best since I started Rath's Reviews
• Controversial and discussion-generating. A film I could probably talk about for hours, which is exciting

Rath's Review Score | 8/10