Ana de Armas paints a violent, explicit portrait of Hollywood legend Marilyn Monroe's emotional descent in Andrew Dominik's upcoming drama Blonde.
The first trailer for the highly anticipated film blurs the line between reality and fiction for the ill-fated superstar, as she tries to maintain her identity — and sanity — as the movie industry attempts to consume her spirit.
"I've played Marilyn Monroe, Marilyn Monroe, Marilyn Monroe. I can't face doing another scene with Marilyn Monroe," de Armas says in the clip, which is soundtracked by a haunting rendition of Monroe's "Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend," from the 1953 film Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. "Marilyn doesn't exist. When I come out of my dressing room, I'm Norma Jean. I'm still her when the camera is rolling. Marilyn Monroe only exists on the screen."
Adapted from the Joyce Carol Oates novel of the same name, Blonde serves as a fantastical depiction of Monroe's life versus a straightforward biopic. The official synopsis stresses that the film highlights "a life both known and unknown" in a "boldly imaginative" project that explores the complications of the star's troubled life.
The trailer also confirms that the Netflix film is rated NC-17 for its sexual content.
Dominik previously called the film "a movie for all the unloved children of the world" in an interview with Collider.
"It's like Citizen Kane and Raging Bull had a baby daughter," he added. "The whole idea of Blonde was to detail a childhood drama and then show the way in which that drama splits the adults into a public and private self. And how the adult sees the world through the lens of that childhood drama, and it's sort of a story of a person whose rational picture of the world as being overwhelmed by her unconscious, and it uses the iconography of Marilyn Monroe."
Blonde — which also stars Adrien Brody as Arthur Miller and Bobby Cannavale as Joe DiMaggio, two of Monroe's husbands — hits Netflix on Sept. 28, following its debut at the 2022 Venice International Film Festival. See the first trailer above.
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