Blonde is a 2022 American psychological drama film written and directed by Andrew Dominik, based on the 2000 novel by Joyce Carol Oates. The film is a fictionalized account of the life and career of American actress Marilyn Monroe, played by Ana de Armas. The cast also includes Adrien Brody, Bobby Cannavale, Xavier Samuel, and Julianne Nicholson.

Dede Gardner, Jeremy Kleiner, Tracey Landon, Brad Pitt, and Scott Robertson produced the film. After a lengthy period of development that began in 2010, Blonde entered production in August 2019 in Los Angeles. Production wrapped in July 2021, following the shutdowns caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The film plays with shifting aspect ratios and alternates between color and black and white.

Blonde premiered at the 79th Venice International Film Festival on September 8, 2022, where it received a 14-minute standing ovation. It began a limited theatrical release in the US on September 16, before its streaming release on September 28 by Netflix. It is the first NC-17-rated film to be released exclusively to a streaming service. The film received mixed reviews from critics and audiences; while de Armas's performance garnered praise, the fictionalization of Monroe's life was considered exploitative and the screenplay was criticized. Blonde received eight nominations at the 43rd Golden Raspberry Awards, winning Worst Picture and Worst Screenplay, while De Armas was nominated for the Academy Award, Actor Award, BAFTA Award, and Golden Globe Award, all for Best Actress.

Plot Six-year-old Norma Jeane Mortenson is raised by her mentally unstable mother, Gladys Pearl Baker. On her seventh birthday in 1933, Norma Jeane is given a framed picture of a man Gladys claims was her father. Later that night, a fire breaks out in Hollywood Hills. Gladys attempts to drive Norma Jeane there, saying a friend with a fireproof mansion lives nearby, but is forced to return by police. When Norma asks why her father left, Gladys becomes enraged, crying, shouting, and hitting her. Back home, Gladys runs a bath and forces Norma Jeane in despite her protests, then tries to drown her. Norma Jeane flees to her neighbor Miss Flynn, and days later is sent to an orphanage while Gladys is admitted to a mental hospital.

In the 1940s, Norma Jeane becomes a pin-up model under the name "Marilyn Monroe," appearing on magazine covers and calendars. While trying to break into acting, she is raped by studio head Mr. Z. In 1951, she auditions for Don't Bother to Knock; though she breaks down, she impresses the casting director and is given the part. As her career rises, she meets Charles "Cass" Chaplin Jr. and Edward G. "Eddy" Robinson Jr., becoming a lover to both. She gains wider fame with Niagara, but her agent urges her to limit public appearances with them, upsetting her as she feels the Marilyn persona is not her real self.

Norma Jeane becomes pregnant by Cass and, fearing the child may inherit her mother's condition, decides on an abortion. Though she changes her mind on the day, her pleas are ignored. She later ends her relationships with Cass and Eddy. She meets Joe DiMaggio, who sympathizes with her desire to leave Hollywood and pursue serious acting in New York City. During Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, she receives a letter from a man claiming to be her father. Feeling detached from her performance at the premiere, she returns to her hotel expecting to meet him, but instead finds DiMaggio, who proposes; she accepts reluctantly.

Their marriage deteriorates when Cass and Eddy give Joe nude publicity photos of her, enraging him; he hits Norma Jeane and demands she stop making The Seven Year Itch. She continues filming, performing the famous white dress scene. Returning home, she faces further violence and soon divorces him.

In 1955, Norma Jeane auditions for the Broadway play Magda by Arthur Miller. Though initially unimpressed, Miller warms to her insight. They marry and move to Maine, where she becomes pregnant again, but later suffers a miscarriage after a fall. Distraught, she returns to acting. While filming Some Like It Hot, she becomes increasingly unstable, overwhelmed by press attention, clashing with director Billy Wilder and growing distant from Miller, while relying on pills.

By 1962, she is dependent on drugs and alcohol. Secret Service agents take an intoxicated Norma Jeane to meet President John F. Kennedy, who rapes her before she is dismissed. Disoriented, she questions her life as Marilyn Monroe and hallucinates another abortion before returning to her home in Los Angeles. Eddy later informs her that Cass has died and left her a package containing a stuffed tiger and a letter revealing he had been writing the letters posing as her father.

Shattered, Norma Jeane overdoses on barbiturates; as she dies, she envisions her father welcoming her into the afterlife.

Cast

Production

Development and writing As early as 2010, director and screenwriter Andrew Dominik began developing the project, which is an adaptation of the novel Blonde (2000), a fictional and controversial account of Monroe's life—and a Pulitzer Prize finalist—by Joyce Carol Oates. Dominik said that he read several of Monroe's biographies but that he used very little of this research in the film, adding that Oates' novel was "pretty much the bible for the film." Dominik told Vulture that Blonde is "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."

Dominik discussed his fascination with Marilyn Monroe, stating, "Why is Marilyn Monroe the great female icon of the 20th Century? For men she is an object of sexual desire that is desperately in need of rescue. For women, she embodies all the injustices visited upon the feminine, a sister, a Cinderella, consigned to live among the ashes [...] I want to tell the story of Norma as a central figure in a fairytale; an orphan child lost in the woods of Hollywood, being consumed by that great icon of the twentieth century."

Dominik described the film as being "more accessible" than his previous projects and revealed that his script contained "very little dialogue", as he preferred to make it more of an "avalanche of images and events." Furthermore, Dominik stated:

For Dominik, Blonde was his first attempt at developing a film featuring a woman at the center of the story. During a retrospective screening of his Oscar-nominated western The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007), Dominik stated, "It's a different thing for me to do [...] the main character is female. My films are fairly bereft of women and now I'm imagining what it's like to be one."

While Netflix classified Blonde as "a fictional portrait of Marilyn Monroe" on the platform's official website, Dominik stated; "I think Blonde is a work of fiction and it's got just as much Joyce in it as it does Marilyn. But having said that, I think it's probably closer to the truth than what Fox is pushing to sell Marilyn stuff."

Pre-production In May 2010, it was announced that Naomi Watts would star in the film as Monroe, and that the production, which at this point cost an estimated $20 million, was slated to begin principal photography in January 2011. Principal photography on the film did not commence, with Dominik later stating he hoped it would be his next film, with production commencing in 2013. During this time, Dominik directed the crime drama Killing Them Softly (2012), starring Brad Pitt, who subsequently became interested in the project.

In June 2012, it was announced Plan B Entertainment would produce the film, with Pitt, Dede Gardner and Jeremy Kleiner serving as producers, but Watts' participation was in question, as "it's likely that the filmmakers would go in a different direction," according to the report. In April 2014, it was announced that Jessica Chastain had replaced Watts as Monroe. Chastain had co-starred in Terrence Malick's drama The Tree of Life (2011) opposite Pitt, who was instrumental in her casting. The report also revealed that Dominik was planning to begin principal photography in August of that year.

Dominik attributed the delays in production partly due to financing: "it's just a question of how much money I can get to make the film. And I really want to make that movie. I've been working on it for years."

In August 2016, it was announced that Netflix would distribute the film.

Casting In March 2019, it was announced that Ana de Armas was in early negotiations to star in the film, replacing Chastain. Dominik noticed de Armas's performance in Knock Knock, and while she went through a long casting process, Dominik secured her the role after the first audition.

In preparation, de Armas worked with a dialect coach for a year. De Armas described her casting process: "I only had to audition for Marilyn once and Andrew said 'It's you,' but I had to audition for everyone else [...] The producers. The money people. I always have people I needed to convince. But I knew I could do it. Playing Marilyn was groundbreaking. A Cuban playing Marilyn Monroe. I wanted it so badly. You see that famous photo of her and she is smiling in the moment, but that's just a slice of what she was really going through at the time."

De Armas considered her relationship with Dominik to be the most collaborative of her career, remarking, "Yes, I have had collaborative relationships, but to get phone calls at midnight because he has an idea and he can't sleep and all of a sudden you can't sleep for the same reason." De Armas read Oates' novel and also said she studied hundreds of photographs, videos, audio recordings, and films.

In August 2019, it was announced that Adrien Brody, Bobby Cannavale, Julianne Nicholson, Caspar Phillipson, Sara Paxton and Xavier Samuel joined the cast, followed by Garret Dillahunt, Scoot McNairy, Lucy DeVito, Michael Masini, Spencer Garrett, Chris Lemmon, Rebecca Wisocky, Ned Bellamy and Dan Butler in September 2019.

Vanessa Lemonides provided Monroe's singing voice in the film.

Filming Principal photography began in Los Angeles in August 2019. In April 2022, Dominik confirmed that the filming was finished in July 2021, following the shutdowns as a result of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, and that post-production had also been finished.

During Blonde'''s press conference at the 79th Venice Film Festival, Dominik said that the initial scenes of the film were shot in the same apartment where Monroe had lived with her mother. Monroe's death scene was also filmed in the same room where she died in real life. "It definitely took on elements of being like a seance," Dominik said. Filming also started on August 4, 2019, the 57th anniversary of Monroe's death. De Armas said at the press conference that she believes Monroe's ghost was close to them on set. "I think she was happy. She would also throw things off the wall sometimes and get mad if she didn't like something. Maybe this sounds very mystical, but it is true. We all felt it." De Armas later told AnOther magazine that everyone in the crew wrote a message to Monroe in a big card, then they went to the cemetery and put it on her grave. "We were asking for permission in a way. Everyone felt a huge responsibility, and we were very aware of the side of the story we were going to tell—the story of Norma Jeane, the person behind this character, Marilyn Monroe. Who was she really?", she said.

Much of Blondes cinematography is digitally shot in black and white; other portions of the film are in color, aspect ratios (1:1, 1.37:1, 1.85:1, 2.39:1) shift to depict historical usage. Many scenes are visual homages to classic photographs of Monroe by notable photographers. Blonde was set to premiere at 2021 Venice Film Festival, but Netflix was unhappy with the final cut it received, and hired Jennifer Lame to help.