One of the unusual side effects of the global pandemic is that because a lot of movies saw their release delayed, movie fans were left to wonder about them just that much longer, in many cases, building them up even more. One of the movies that has been talked about a lot over the last couple of years is Andrew Dominik’s Blonde, which has been in development since 2012, and stars Ana de Armas as Marilyn Monroe. Blonde’s promising to be a controversial movie, if for its NC-17 rating alone, but the director is expecting the movie will “offend everyone.”
Blonde will be the first Netflix project to hit the streaming service with an NC-17 rating, and that fact alone means viewers should expect something that crosses lines that most movies, especially movies on Netflix, don’t. What that means specifically, we don’t really know yet. The MPAA’s explanation of the Blonde rating is simply that it includes "some sexual content." Speaking with Vulture, director Dominik says that while the movie, will have a “morality about it,” it might not be the sort that audiences are expecting or comfortable embracing. The director explains…
It’s an interesting time for Blonde to come out. If it had come out a few years ago, it would have come out right when Me Too hit and it would have been an expression of all that stuff. We’re in a time now, I think, where people are really uncertain about where any lines are. It’s a film that definitely has a morality about it. But it swims in very ambiguous waters because I don’t think it will be as cut-and-dried as people want to see it. There’s something in it to offend everyone.
On the one hand Andrew Dominik says that Blonde would have been an “expression” of the Me Too movement if it had come out in 2020 when that movement was at its peak in public consciousness following its start in 2018. At the same time, that apparently doesn’t mean the movie will necessarily embrace those ideas, as the director also calls the movie ambiguous.
The life of Marilyn Monroe is a complex one as there is a lot that we do know about her, and just as much that’s still shrouded in rumor and mystery. She’s a woman that many people have come to idolize over the years, and considering that Andrew Dominik says this will tell the story of Monroe’s life “warts and all,” we can certainly guess that those that hold her in high esteem might see things they’d rather not. At the same time, the movie is based on the book of the same name, which is a fictionalized version of Monroe’s life. So what we see might not necessarily be entirely true to life.
Blonde is expected to release later this year, though an exact release date has not been announced. Certainly it feels like Blonde is expected to be a major event movie, Ana de Armas’ performance as Marilyn is something a lot of people are waiting to see, so seeing the film released in theaters near the end of the year, like other potential awards contenders, would not be surprising.
