Blonde begins with a hallucinatory prologue in which Death takes the form of a bicycle messenger threading his way through traffic to an address where the occupant is recorded as “MM”. Joyce Carol Oates’s “radically distilled” take on Marilyn Monroe’s life – a film of which comes to Netflix this month – delves deep into the actor’s early years when she was still called Norma Jeane, depicting a wretched childhood marked by a narcissistic, alcoholic mother; spells in an orphanage and a foster home; and marriage at 16. From there we follow her rise to fame, her largely unhappy relationships and her marriages to “the Ex-Athlete” (Joe DiMaggio) and “the Playwright” (Arthur Miller).
The narration is by Jayne Atkinson, who resists the urge to ham up Monroe’s famously breathy voice, and who conveys the actor’sMonroe’s ambition, vulnerability and anxious relationship with her public persona. Oates’s novel was criticised when it was published in 2000 for its blurring of fact and fiction. Today, though, it feels remarkably ahead of its time in its depictions of institutional misogyny, outrageous abuses of power, and a young woman struggling to stay afloat in an industry that cares little for her mental wellbeing.
