jisforjoe

There's a moment in the opening wildfire scene where Norma Jean's mother expels a sigh that's equal parts anger and exasperation. Who knew that sigh would become my mantra for the rest of this travesty's runtime? "Blonde" is a cinematic snuff film: sadistic and exploitative in how it revels in Marilyn Monroe's pain. The way director Andrew Dominik indulges in her misery is nauseating.

Jumping from one traumatic fever dream to the next, this joyless film reduces a cultural icon into a punching bag for the parade of leeches, con-men, charlatans, abusers, and vultures in her life, culminating with "Blonde's" director himself. Everyone's queued up to extract their pound of flesh from Marilyn Monroe's legacy in this sick sideshow, both in-camera and behind it.

I've never hate-Googled a DP until now, but holy cow: Chayse Irvin's cinematography is self-indulgent, pompous trend-chasing with zero rhyme or reason. It's three hours of "herp derp I bet this will look dope."

Arbitrary transitions from color to black-and-white; aspect ratio swaps for no cohesive or thematic reason; and "trendy" camera set-ups (I audibly scoffed at the random chest GoPro angle for Bobby Cannavale in one scene) are but a small taste of the incoherent parlor tricks thrown your way over the course of Blonde's nearly three hours.

As if there aren't enough sins to go around, the sloppy, unbalanced sound design comes in as if to say, "hold my beer." There's jarring jumps in volume when Norma Jean's mom screams at her, or when certain sound effects or score elements come in and out. It almost feels like they thought the project was a horror movie that needed jump scares baked in. We must also reserve a special lashing for whoever thought FETUS VOICEOVER would be a worthwhile element to add to this turd-pile of a movie.

I love Ana de Armas' work but whoever signed off on her American accent needs to be drawn and quartered. It vacillates between, "okay fine" to "big yikes." Every time Ana utters "Daddy" was NAILS ON A CHALKBOARD.

The choice to luxuriate in Marilyn Monroe's misery as opposed to condemning the parties who precipitated it is telling. There is a brief moment halfway through where you think Marilyn has finally realized her worth and is ready to speak up for herself as deserving of respect as the freaking reason people come to see her movies, but it putters out as a blip in the grand scheme of the tragedy porn this film prefers to live in.

My biggest regret is viewing this film as part of an in-theater early screening. If I had been watching on Netflix, I could have just ended my misery without much fuss.