"Blonde" review: The controversy is earned, but misplaced
"Blonde," 2022, directed by Andrew Dominik ★★ ☆ ☆ ☆ A month on from “Blonde”’s streaming release on Netflix, it’s difficult to begin the film with no expectations. Some have slammed Andrew Dominik’s nearly three-hour adaptation of Joyce Carol Oates’ novelization of Marilyn Monroe’s life as needless torture porn that insults the real Monroe, while its defenders have characterized it as a horrifying, poignant social commentary on iconography and sexual violence akin to David Lynch’s “Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me”. While there are some central ideas in “Blonde” that do feel successfully empathic and sensitively plaintive, far more of it comes across as dated, obtuse, and ethically disordered. Even with some arguably revolutionary technical work from cinematographer Chayse Irvin and a beautifully disturbing score by Nick Cave and Warren Ellis, “Blonde” is anything but culturally enduring or coherent. The film mostly features events from Monroe’s real life, and it hones its focus...