Netflix has released a sneak peek at its upcoming NC-17 movie about Marilyn Monroe. The Blonde trailer transforms Ana de Armas into the Hollywood icon, whose thousand-watt smile is at odds with a soul-crushing identity crisis.
Blonde is a fictionalized take on the life of the actress, based on the 2000 novel of the same name by Joyce Carol Oates. The film reimagines her life from a traumatic childhood, when she was still known as Norma Jeane Mortenson, to her worldwide fame as a sex symbol in the 1940s and '50s through her probable suicide at the age of 36 from an overdose of barbiturates.
In the trailer, the actress ruminates about how she's still not used to being a global celebrity or, for that matter, being "Marilyn Monroe." That figure only exists on screen. To her, she's still just Norma Jeane.
Blonde will tackle the stark contrast between her seemingly happy appearances and the sexism, exploitation, abuse and drug addictions she faced off-screen. The trailer feels like tragedy, mournfully playing Monroe's "Diamonds Are a Girls Best Friend" as images flash of Marilyn sobbing, screaming and crashing a car.
The film features a powerhouse cast beyond de Armas, including Bobby Cannavale as "the Ex-Athlete" Joe DiMaggio; Adrien Brody as "the Playwright" Arthur Miller; Caspar Phillipson as "the President" John F. Kennedy"; Julianne Nicholson as mother Gladys Pearl Baker; and Toby Huss as makeup artist Allan "Whitey" Snyder.
Blonde is rated NC-17 for graphic sexual content, the first such explicit movie to be released through a streaming service. (If you're wondering about Netflix's softcore porn thriller 365 Days, it was rated TV-MA).
The movie is set to be released September 28.
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