Marilyn Monroe Was Never on Time
CO-EDITORS-IN-CHIEF
Cynthia Littleton
It must have been a devastating obituary to write. Sixty years ago, Variety reported on the death of Norma Jeane Baker. Of course, the story introduced her by her other, better-known name. “Marilyn Monroe, who often tried without success to shut herself off from the world, early yesterday did so,” began the dispatch, published on Aug. 6, 1962. “The 36-year-old actress was found dead in bed in her Brentwood home, apparently the victim of an overdose of sleeping pills.”
From that day on, Monroe never really left us: Her screen roles turned her into a star, but the tragedy and lost potential she symbolizes has made her a legend. She’s been the subject of countless biographies, fashion retrospectives, films, songs and musicals (including the fictional one on NBC’S “Smash,” a cult favorite in the newsroom). Still, it’s safe to say you’ve never seen Monroe as she’s embodied in “Blonde” by Ana de Armas, best known until now for her work in the 2019 ensemble mystery “Knives Out.”
“Blonde” takes on familiar iconography, but it’s far from mainstream. Andrew Dominik’s Nc-17-rated drama has been the subject of intense intrigue since rumors swirled last year that Netflix, a streamer that
Ramin Setoodeh
isn’t known to have a heavy hand with its directors, was holding the movie so that it could be retooled.
Now that the film is finally here, it’s clear why it might have made early viewers skittish. This is a meditation on celebrity as Kafkaesque nightmare. It’s also the work of a visionary auteur — a kind of gamble that Netflix might not make in today’s climate of shrinking subscriptions and uneven stock prices. Whether or not you fall for the film, it’s hard to argue against its most obvious discovery: de Armas is a movie star, and her career won’t be the same after “Blonde.”
“There were moments when I thought maybe this movie would never come out,” de Armas tells our senior correspondent Daniel D’addario in an extensive interview for this week’s issue, explaining the roller-coaster ride that was the making of the film and its protracted release. One of Monroe’s famous vices was her perpetual tardiness — as if, in trying to “shut herself off from the world,” she could hide from it for an extra stolen moment. Now Monroe gets the last laugh: We’ve waited years for her to arrive in her latest iteration, and, channeled by de Armas in a hypnotic performance, she holds our attention.