Review of Blonde (2022) by Joelony — 29 Sep 2022

Blonde takes so many artistic liberties and rewrites history to farcical levels by overly lionizing fame, painting all men as evil, and creating an elaborately one-note and eye-rolling approach to victimization and the masks we wear to cope. Norma Jean could do no wrong in this narrative, simply a victim of her circumstances. That's not how reality works and the "artistic merit" comes across as emotionally stunted hubris and an obsession to tell their own version of the narrative, not Norma Jean's.

De Armas does look the part and acts her heart out, but her accent is very noticeable throughout the film, especially during emotional scenes. This isn't a knock against her, but rather an example of the pieces that don't fit together. And finally the elephant in the room: It's despicable to manufacture a controversial NC-17 rating to get people to watch the film. That is exactly what happened here. Money holding executives saw that this was a 2.75+ hour turd with nothing of substance to say, so they sold sexualization. This film's marketing has the very exploitative nature it attempted to shed a light upon. In the end, Blonde didn't get very many parts right and the message and rewrites simply muddy the waters of history, not make it clearer.