Blonde

Marilyn Monroe was an outgoing star and a pop-culture icon. Norma Jeane Mortensen was an vulnerable introvert who sought love and belonging. Their coexistence within the same body forms the core of Blonde, an audacious biopic highlighted by a transformative performance by Ana de Armas.

Spending more time outside the spotlight and inside her mind, the provocative film provides a convoluted if captivating perspective on the nature of celebrity, and the contentious balance between private happiness and public image.

Along the way, it fractures Monroe’s tragic into an uneven collection of speculative and revisionist snippets intended to paint a cohesive portrait of a woman whose personal life beneath its glamorous surface was marred by persistent despair and neglect.

The film opens with an episode from a traumatic childhood that haunted her throughout her life, with her father absent and her single mother (Julianne Nicholson) relegated to a mental institution. Growing up in the shadows of Hollywood, she still pursued stardom and wound up the definitive 1950s sex symbol. Still, plagued by insecurities and psychological demons, she becomes an easy target for the rampant objectification and behind-the-scenes sexual abuse of the era.

The screenplay by director Andrew Dominik (Killing Them Softly), based on a novel by Joyce Carol Oates, checks off the iconic moments from her film career, plus her turbulent relationships — such as marriages to baseball star Joe DiMaggio (Bobby Cannavale) and playwright Arthur Miller (Adrien Brody) — with an almost relentless sense of gloom and cynicism.

The more famous she becomes, the more isolated she feels. Her erratic behavior and drug addiction triggers a downward spiral at the height of her fame.

De Armas (Knives Out) fully inhabits her role beyond mimicking Monroe’s speech or mannerisms. She generates sympathy even if the film is too eager to position Monroe as a misunderstood victim and a tortured soul whose talents were too often obscured by a superficial starlet image.

The film stylishly re-creates the period, although some of Dominik’s flourishes border on self-indulgence, from shifting aspect ratios to toggling between color and black-and-white without enhancing intimacy or making a meaningful impact.

With graphic depictions of rape and abortion, Blonde is hardly the glossy retrospective you might expect given Monroe’s legacy. It’s more like cinematic revenge on her behalf. She was never allowed to live a normal life 70 years ago, and contemporary moviegoers are left to pay the price.

Rated NC-17, 166 minutes.