How should we assess writer-director Andrew Dominik’s adaptation of Joyce Carol Oates’s historical fiction novel about the inner life of Marilyn Monroe? Some have viewed it as a biopic and judged it accordingly, worrying about its (lack of) fidelity to the known details of Monroe’s life, and attempting to evaluate how accurately or (un)fairly it presents her strengths and weaknesses, on and off screen. Others have interpreted it as a more expressionist portrayal of the gap between private and public personae – a generic peep at the tears behind the smiling mask of celebrity. Yet at its heart this is a gothic melodrama, a fever dream of childhood trauma haunting adult life, replete with skin-crawlingly cruel visions of inquisitorial torture, brutal ordeals and hellish infernos – more Nightmare on Elm Street than My Week With Marilyn.
Cuban actor Ana de Armas, who proved a scene-stealing presence in films such as Knives Out and No Time to Die, is simply extraordinary as Norma Jeane Baker, an aspiring performer for whom the spectre of Marilyn Monroe is an assumed identity – a portal to stardom. Her past is full of monsters: a mother (a mesmerising Julianne Nicholson) who drives her into raging fires and attempts to drown her in a scalding bath; and an unknown father from whom she receives creepily controlling ghostly missives. Juggling past and present, Dominik intercuts childhood fears with grownup tears as she encounters monstrous studio heads (an early “audition” leads to rape), violent husbands (Bobby Cannavale’s Joe DiMaggio beats her when pin-up photos fire his jealousy) and loveless lovers (an assignation with JFK will make you gag). Worse still are the grotesque intra-uterine visions of doctors that owe a debt to the demonic delirium of Rosemary’s Baby (Roman Polanski’s Repulsion also casts a long shadow) or to the abortive abortion scene from David Cronenberg’s The Fly crossed with the imagined unborn-baby-talk of Alice Lowe’s antenatal slasher Prevenge.
