New Delhi

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 some such, but I cannot wholly agree. 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. But 'Blonde', adapted by Dominik from Joyce Carol Oates' eponymous 2000 novel, does often go overboard. At times, despite the big names, the bells and whistles, and palpable prestige production quality, it ventures into the sleazy territory -- no different from the men who used and discarded Monroe like a plaything.

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Born Norma Jean, Monroe is remembered as one of the most iconic female stars from the Golden Age of Hollywood, and a sex symbol. Due to accounts of her life, we know that beneath the glittering, smiling exterior, she was a mentally ill, lonely wreck of a woman. She had the misfortune to be work in Hollywood at a time when misogyny was rampant. Female actors were hired for their looks and sex appeal. The film's title evokes the blonde stereotypes of that era that have not died down even now. The thinking went that blonde women are dumb but more sexually attractive than brunettes or redheads.

The marketing of 'Blonde' has used terms like 'reimagining' for the story, and the script (and the novel, I presume) does fill in Monroe's life with invented material where there are blanks. In short, 'Blonde' is not a biopic, clinging to the alleged truthfulness of the events like many biopics inevitably do. But if one is indeed fictionalising much of Monroe's life, why not go all the way? Why not give her charge of her own story? It's a film, not a documentary, and films can be fairy tales... they can be happy.

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If indeed the film was going the "realistic" way, it fails at that as well. There is no real insight here. Yes, Monroe was overly sexualised, raped, infantilised, used, abused by men, the media and even her fans. And yes, she suffered from mental illnesses and all this was a result of a difficult childhood. But all that has been known for decades. 'Blonde' offers nothing that we do not already know. 

The NC-17 rating ensures that in the movie Dominik was allowed a fair bit of nudity, physical violence, and sexual assault scenes. 

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The camera focusses predominantly on Armas, and the film stands or tumbles on her performance. Luckily, the performance in question is absolutely amazing. It manages to capture at once her pain, her exhaustion, and her childlike delight, and her different moods. Armas is too good an actress to simply imitate Monroe. What she does is an interpretation, capturing the depth of the late starlet's psyche. It is a full-bodied, heartbreaking performance that makes the character more complicated than the script could ever dream to manage.

'Blonde' is also a good-looking movie. Chayse Irvin's camera crafts truly wonderfully evocative visuals, particularly while recreating the iconic images that have come to associate with Monroe. But even that feels exploitative after a while.  

At the end, it is the punishing run time that truly kills 'Blonde'. Dominik's overindulgent and overwrought script, in perhaps an attempt to emulate auteurs, needlessly elongates several scenes. 

'Blonde' is not a bad film. It probably deserves a watch just for Armas and the visuals -- provided you will last those nearly three hours. 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.