Featured Image Credit: Netflix
Topics: TV And Film, Celebrity, Netflix
Shola Lee
Andrew Dominik's Blonde isn't for the faint-hearted, it turns out, as he in fact wants audiences 'shaking'.
Blonde, Netflix's highly anticipated Marilyn Monroe flick, drops today, (28 September) and, as fans ready themselves to see Ana de Armas' take on the Hollywood starlet, Dominik is quick to brace us - as it's not going to be an easy watch.
Fresh from a 14-minute standing ovation at Cannes, the film is based on Joyce Carol Oates' novel of the same name, which takes a fictional look at the icon's life, 'from her volatile childhood as Norma Jeane, through her rise to stardom and romantic entanglements'.
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The film first caught headlines earlier this year for being given a rare 'adults only' rating by Netflix.
It's a rating that reflects Dominik's attitude towards the film, and while the director blurs the lines of fact and fiction, he was clear about one thing — he's not 'concerned with being tasteful'.
Still, it seems the director wants to make people uncomfortable, as he told Sight and Sound: "Blonde is supposed to leave you shaking. Like an orphaned rhesus monkey in the snow.
"It’s a howl of pain or rage. Of all the films I’ve made, it’s the one that strikes me the most differently each time I watch it."
And true to word, the film's method of addressing abortion looks to be anything but tasteful as a CGI shot of Marilyn's unborn baby pleads with her not to kill it.
An odd choice given that the scene comes from a throwaway line, a passing fear of the protagonist, in Oates' novel.
And, given that women in the US had their right to choose ripped out from under them earlier this year in the Roe v Wade overturning, is a film directed by a man about a woman whose life, which was controlled by men, really the place to linger on a foetus berating her right to choose?
People on Twitter weren't exactly thrilled with the choice, either: "It's not even 9 am and already I've learned today that #Blonde is 'anti-choice' because it's got 'a trio of CGI fetuses asking why Monroe murdered them'," one user wrote.
While a second said: "I’m enjoying #Blonde but these 3D baby render transitions are killing me."
While another added: "Annnnnnnnnd there's the womb cam, the inside the vagina POV. Oh, y'all going to hell. And when Anti Abortion Anti Choice People start using these clips in their ads.
"We can thank Andrew Dominik and Netflix for giving them their Propaganda tools. OH F**K YOU!"
Blonde is available to stream on Netflix now.