The film with the biggest buzz going into the Venice Film Festival, a dark new portrait of Marilyn Monroe starring Cuban actress Ana de Armas, finally gets its world premiere on Thursday.
“Blonde” is a long-awaited biopic produced by Netflix that promises to delve deep into the childhood trauma and sexual violence that lay behind the highly sexualized image of the 20th-century icon.
The choice of Armas for the lead role has not been without controversy, with online trolls slamming her slight Cuban accent when the trailer was released this summer.
But Monroe’s estate, although not involved in the film, has supported her performance, saying Armas “captures Marilyn’s glamour, humanity, and vulnerability”.
There have also been rumors of an extended stand-off between Netflix and Australian director Andrew Dominik over the film, which was completed in 2019.
Dominik reportedly refused to shorten its three-hour running time or tone down some of the more graphic scenes, and Netflix has taken the rare step of giving it an adults-only NC-17 rating ahead of its release on the streamer on September 28.
Dominik, ever modest, has declared the finished product “a masterpiece” and rejected any doubts about his star’s vocal skills.
“I had concerns until I saw her act, then I forgot what I was supposed to be concerned about,” he told the LA Times.
Armas has called the decision to use a Latina actress “ground-breaking”.
Another supporter is Brad Pitt, who won Best Actor at Venice in 2007 for his role in Dominik’s “The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford”, and serves as producer on “Blonde”.
“She is phenomenal in it,” he told Entertainment Tonight. “That’s a tough dress to fill.”
