Is the 2022 film Blonde a feminist masterpiece or a cruel, exploitative nightmare?
In short: Andrew Dominik’s Blonde is a polarizing, surrealist reimagining of Marilyn Monroe’s life. Based on Joyce Carol Oates’ novel, the film blends historical fact with dark fiction, casting Ana de Armas as a woman trapped by her own icon status. It is a visually stunning, deeply divisive exploration of trauma and fame.
Director Andrew Dominik spent over a decade developing Blonde, an adaptation of Joyce Carol Oates’ 2000 novel. Rather than a traditional biopic, Dominik envisioned the film as an 'avalanche of images and events' that explores how childhood trauma splits a person into public and private selves. The production was marked by long delays, shifting from Naomi Watts to Jessica Chastain before Ana de Armas was cast in 2019. To prepare, de Armas spent a year with a dialect coach and studied hundreds of archival materials, later describing the set as having a mystical, séance-like atmosphere.
The film’s aesthetic is intentionally disorienting, utilizing shifting aspect ratios and alternating between color and black-and-white sequences to mirror the protagonist's fractured reality. Dominik aimed to portray Monroe as a 'Cinderella' figure consumed by the Hollywood machine. However, the result sparked intense debate. While critics almost universally praised de Armas’s performance—which earned her an Academy Award nomination—the screenplay was frequently condemned. Detractors argued that the film obsessively dwells on Monroe’s suffering, turning her into a passive avatar of pain rather than a multidimensional human being.
Critics remain sharply divided on whether the film critiques the exploitation of Monroe or merely replicates it. Some reviewers, including those at The New Yorker and The New York Times, labeled the project as dehumanizing and necrophiliac. Conversely, others found the surreal, nightmarish approach refreshing, comparing its stylistic intensity to the work of David Lynch. Even the author of the source material, Joyce Carol Oates, defended the adaptation as a 'brilliant' and 'feminist' interpretation. Ultimately, Blonde stands as a rare NC-17 streaming release that refuses to offer easy answers, leaving audiences to decide if it honors the woman behind the icon or further exploits her legacy.
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- Summary by Intellect · source: Blonde (2022 film)
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