Undeniably Blonde was one of my most anticipated movies of the year. The return of Andrew Dominick after three genuinely sensational previous films with Chopper, The Assassination of Jesse James and Killing Them Softly. Pair this with the rising superstar of Ana De Armas, all telling the story of a fictionalised Marilyn Monroe / Norma Jeane biopic. All so good so far, right? But as I’m sure you’ve been inundated already with, Blonde is going for something far removed from the standard biopic, this is less so a tale of Monroe’s life and more so a chronicle of solely her troubles. Is this by design? Certainly. Does that make it right? Well, that’s a larger conversation. Is this a conversation I even want to touch, well naturally I do, because although many folks are seemingly cutting of all reverence for the film, I simply have to interrogate what didn’t work, to rationalise and mentally clash with the array of things (that I dare say objectively) work so well here.

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Now as always state comparison is sometimes a fruitless form of criticism, however I would like to start by doing just that. Blonde seems to be the concluding part of a wholly different auteurs trilogy, that of Pablo Lorrain’s ‘Idols in perils’ trilogy, that of the brilliant Jackie and the great Spencer. Films where the most public of idols are interrogated, studied, viewed in macro and micro, to view a more complex vision of the person we all think we know so well. Now Blonde shares granular DNA with Spencer, a film where the approach is to even take this to a level of immersed horror and have our publicly troubled idol appear in multiple horror and absurdist sequences as-well to highlight the horrid struggles these women faced. Now, chief difference - Spencer is one horrid heightened weekend, and still throughout manages to highlight the breadth of Diana as a figure, highlighting her agency, her hope, her joy amidst and against these struggles. Blonde is cradle to grave and is nothing but the horror. Now again, was this intentional? Certainly. I have no idea where critics and the like believing that Dominick has no concept of Monroe as a figure of great triumph in the Hollywood system, in business, in the creative realm and in the personal. Is his personal rejection of her films and elements of her life troubling? It’s bizarre, yes. That is just not the film he is making. He has chosen to make a film where we view from cradle to grave the most horrid and traumatic aspects of her life, now I can’t fall in line with those who cite that Monroe’s life was not about trauma, the woman was a deeply troubled figure, however her life was about triumph over trauma, a woman who triumphed over her struggles - for a time, of course, until they consumed her. Now I think it’s very bizarre territory to critique a film against a fictional film that was not made, that is to say, this was Dominick’s film, this is the Blonde we received, there are more than plenty of more standard Monroe biopics. For better or for worse. In the end I have to argue for the worse. I find that the film does justify its length, I was never - ‘bored’ and ‘entertained’ are not words to use with this film - uninterested and was compelled to remain for the whole near three hour run-time, however it was just nothing but pain, trauma and loss. The psychological insights seem cheap and shallow, and frankly basic. It’s not that her troubled relationship (or lack thereof) with her father didn’t have an effect on her life, but to pin absolutely everything back to that one issue, feels empty and trite. One idea cannot justify the running time, but the performances, the direction and the overall horrid tone does capture ones unsettled view. Also there is the matter of the fictionalised aspect of this tale, which is to say that the film is nearly entirely factual until we enter into aspects that are of salacious speculation, conspiracy and rumour. In a style of interest to me, the film approaches every subject, no matter how factual or how speculative at the same value, but again the film only does this fictionalised angle to infuse more scenes of trauma with huge figures (I’m sure you can guess) that are similarly tantalising and intriguing to us. To give a film the fictionalised label only to largely follow the truth more or less, is a cheap and lousy way to give yourself carte blanche when you want to make your own speculations, psychological insights and conspiracy theory psycho-babble sequences.

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But… Hold your Twitter threads for just a moment… The film is one of the best films of the year so far. Well, no, it’s not - I’m landing around a 7/10 - but it certainly is one of the best made films I’ve seen in a very long time. The impeccable craft and balancing of stocks, frames, colours and grains paired with an incredible montage sensibility that never feels choppy or overly edited, and when it does it’s for intentional intoxication. Dominick is s a sublime director, his writing here less than sublime, but his directorial vision is a rich, effecting, terrifying and sublime affair. The editing of Adam Robinson is frantic, effective and at times even delicate, paired with the sumptuous, beautiful, haunting and powerful cinematography of Chayse Irvin, all leads to one of the best looking and well crafted films of the year without a doubt in my mind. But this is all in service as already mentioned of a screenplay fuelled by shallowness, perversion and at times even damaging and lame ideologies and presentations. The films ideas could barley maintain an hour, but the impeccable film-making more than justifies three hours and I could have watched plenty more. Monroe is so clearly not of interest to Dominick, so why not just make it wholly fictional? Because he wants to play with, fetishise and distort iconography in a perverse challenging of Hollywood imagery. Again, to service this overall failed vision are some of the best performances of the year. Ana De Armas is every bit as perfect as I believe we all thought she’d be. She of course captures the beauty, sensuality and immense sexiness of this sex symbol and icon, but it is with her that we find the depth that the script does not allow her. Despite the script being one note, she’s playing several. Now of course these all lean towards the tragic and the vulnerable, but all of these are played with a nuance and delicacy that break your heart. The entirety of the ensemble are terrific. Adrien Brody does a pitch perfect Arthur Miller, Bobby Cannavelle does a great DiMaggio. Toby Huss is a figure of great warmth. Julianne Nicholson does great work. Every single person on this film - including Nick Cave and Warren Elli’s sublime score - is dong top class work. It’s such a shame of what it is all in service of.

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An absolute 10/10 film knocked down to at most a 7/10 by the emptiness of the concept it presents. Some of the best directing, cinematography, music and performances of the year all are in service of a film whose heart is black and whose concepts are shallow and base. De Armas is a super-star and remains one, and this will help, but even her immense capability, along with (again) some of by far the best film-making of the year, cannot elevate to too great an extent a film with a foundation of sand. One struggles to empathise with Monroe and De Armas on a character level, because as the film goes on you find very quickly that your reactions are not on a emotional level, instead on an intellectual one, as you reckon with the fact critically that Monroe is not the victim of the studio system, or the abusers in her life, but instead Monroe is the victim of the punishing film she is trapped in.

P.S. I am currently struggling a lot when it comes to the THOMAS CARRUTHERS AWARDS with Mia Goth and Ana De Armas, who our two clear front runners, however do we do dual nominations for Deep Water and Blonde / X and Pearl, and will be people angry at me when I make the case that not only do I think De Armas is better in Deep Water, but should be the nomination she receives, if she receives any this Awards season. I want the world for De Armas, she really is one of our great current super-stars, I thought this was going to be a sure-fire shooting star of a film for her, it seems by every account, when it comes to the public eye, I was deathly wrong.

-        -  Thomas Carruthers