Watched the U.S.A.'s Blonde (2:47:11), a post postmodern semi-biopic on Marilyn Monroe based on the novel by Joyce Carol Oates. Indirectly, it is a commentary on the Hollywood star system of the 50s-60s and how men in power abuse rising, female stars; thankfully, most of that has changed and movie denizens are now aware of their rights as human beings.

The members of the cast deliver convincing performers. Despite having eyes like Sophia Loren's and the facial structure of Helena Bonham-Carter, Ana de Armas manages to look like Marilyn Monroe in many of the scenes. More importantly, she did not push her acting toward caricature as Faye Dunaway did in Mommy Dearest. 

The movie was created with a marked decision to be a work of cinematic art. It has many Life-Magazine shots. Lighting plays a big part in every scene, and blocking is cleverly choreographed. It might as well have been directed by Ken Russell, with that almost over-the-edge irreverence toward the female body. Its interesting feature is the attempt at being Chekhovian--important events are deliberately left out so that all we witness are their aftermath. The problem, of course, is that the direction, cinematography, and production design keep calling attention to themselves, constantly reminding us that we are merely watching a movie. The resulting alienation is therefore Brechtian rather than Chekhovian. Pretentious shot after pretentious shot becomes tiresome, and what is Marilyn Monroe's life really in the end but one, long, Freudian melodrama.

Many of the scenes in the movie were too "crafted," as though to help the actors look deep and intense and vie for awards, or at the very least for those scenes to be plucked off for a trailer. Head shots come across as "saved" audition shots. The screenplay suffers from a weak point of attack. We are introduced to the conflict only one hour into, or more than one third of, the movie, when the protagonist says, for the first time, "I wanna go back." It is at this point when the viewer sympathizes with the protagonist, and only then does the premise become clear: this is all about the protagonist's Elektra complex and how it was transferred to the different men in her life. I saw that it was also about the protagonist's split personality as Norma Jean and as Marilyn, but decided that this was not intentional because of the movie's title: Blonde.