"Blonde": De Armas elevates Marilyn Monroe, the film victimizes her

Ana de Armas as Marilyn Monroe in "Blonde," singing "Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend" in "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes."
Blonde
Starring Ana de Armas, Julianne Nicholson, Adrien Brody, Bobby Cannavale, Xavier Samuel, Garret Dillahunt, Toby Huss, Caspar Phillipson and Lily Fisher. Written and directed by Andrew Dominik, adapted from the novel by Joyce Carol Oates. Opens Friday at TIFF Bell Lightbox. 166 minutes. STC
āā1/2 (out of 4)
Peter Howell
Movie Critic
āThey say Iām whistle bait, could be, but Iām forever meeting guys who donāt stop at a whistle. Iāve learned to handle them all.ā
ā Marilyn Monroe, āWolves I Have Knownā
The quote above is from a magazine essay published in January 1953, the year of Monroeās big Hollywood breakthrough, when she had starring roles in āGentlemen Prefer Blondes,ā āHow to Marry a Millionaireā and āNiagara.ā
At age 26, Monroe knew who she was. She understood the smouldering sexuality of her screen image and the effect it had on people. She had a sad beginning and a tragic demise, but she was nobodyās fool and nobodyās victim.
Thatās not the message we get in Andrew Dominikās āBlonde,ā which stars a luminous Ana de Armas in the title role. The Cuban actor brings much-needed compassion and believability to a film of harsh judgments, dirty whispers and lazy conclusions about one of the 20th centuryās greatest movie icons.
Dominik humanized an infamous Wild West outlaw in āThe Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Fordā and a gangland hit man in āKilling Them Softly.ā Yet heās unable or unwilling to extend the same courtesy to Marilyn Monroe.
To be fair, āBlondeā follows a gawk-and-pity template laid down by author Joyce Carol Oates in her 2000 bestselling novel of the same name, a 738-page doorstopper that stretched the definition of biography by injecting a large amount of wild supposition into known facts about Monroe.
Like the book, the nearly three-hour film depicts the former Norma Jeane Baker as a pathetic figure enduring daddy issues and a succession of rejections and abuse from preying and uncaring men. The plot takes a then-this-happened approach that numbs the viewer, despite Dominikās attempts to liven up the frame with flashing lights, rapid edits, constant colour/B&W shifts, and bizarre images that include a vaginal POV shot and a talking fetus lamenting an abortion.
The film begins Monroeās story in 1933, when seven-year-old Norma Jeane (Lily Fisher) is living in L.A. with her schizophrenic (and later institutionalized) mother, Gladys (Julianne Nicholson), who points to a faded wall photo of an actor resembling Clark Gable and declares him to be the girlās father. Mother and daughter undergo near-death experiences by fire and water, and Norma Jeane finds herself in the care of state authorities. Sheās an orphan in name if not reality.
Jump to circa 1950, when Norma Jeane is now the starlet Marilyn Monroe, being casually raped in the office of a studio mogul called Mr. Z (allegedly Fox boss Darryl Zanuck), her āauditionā for a small but important role in āAll About Eve,ā which will become the yearās big Oscar winner.
This mercifully brief scene begins a series of degradations at male hands that will include Monroeās marriages to āthe Ex-Athleteā (a.k.a. baseball great Joe DiMaggio, played by an intense Bobby Cannavale) and āthe Playwrightā (a.k.a. Pulitzer-winning writer Arthur Miller, played by an owlish Adrien Brody). The first spouse is jealous and violent; the second is condescending and exploitive.
Later weāll see arguably Monroeās greatest humiliation and the filmās most tawdry moment. Sheās summoned to the hotel room of President John F. Kennedy (Caspar Phillipson) to administer oral sex while heās on the phone (āAm I room service?ā she asks JFKās security men) while cartoonish images of rockets appear on a nearby TV set.
Dominik allows Monroe just one brief interlude of joyful agency in her sex life, a time early in her career when she simultaneously dates the look-alike sons of two famous actors: Charlie Chaplin Jr. (Xavier Samuel) and Eddy G. Robinson Jr. (Evan Williams), who identify and sympathize with her absent-father loneliness. Yet even this playful ménage à trois, based on rumour rather than fact, will eventually lead to unhappiness.
Itās a pity we donāt see more of Allan āWhiteyā Snyder (Toby Huss), Monroeās personal makeup man and crafter of her unique look, who might be the only male in the movie who isnāt trying to exploit her.
Through it all, and including the termination of at least two pregnancies through abortion and miscarriage, Monroe maintains a grim stoicism in private and a carefree ebullience in public.
Expressing all these emotions and experiences demands a lot of actor de Armas, who rises to the challenge superbly and makes me inclined to give the movie a pass on the basis of her performance alone.
She resembles and moves like Monroe enough that in scenes recreating some of the starās most famous moments ā such as the āDiamonds Are a Girlās Best Friendā number from āGentlemen Prefer Blondesā and the subway-grate āflying skirtā PR stunt for āThe Seven Year Itchā ā itās hard to tell the icon from the actor.
De Armas also conveys Monroeās breathy whisper of a voice, so intoxicating to male ears, with barely a trace of her natural Cuban accent. Donāt believe any comments made to the contrary.
Most of all, she conveys Monroeās inner fortitude, undoubtedly true to life. She makes you believe the āIāve learned to handle them allā boast about navigating the many toxic males in Monroeās orbit, even if it was more aspirational than actual.
When the time inevitably arrives to depicts Monroeās tragic 1962 death at age 36, an apparent suicide through drug overdose, de Armas summons genuine feelings of grief and loss as the film exercises rare restraint.
De Armas elevates Marilyn Monroe with her performance. Dominik, like author Oates before him, sullies the iconās memory by emphasizing gossip over fact. āBlondeā remains an imperfect account of a perfectly captivating individual. š
(Originally published in the Toronto Star.)
Twitter: @peterhowellfilm

The real Marilyn Monroe, singing "Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend" in "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes."