Plot

The story of American actress Marilyn Monroe, covering her love and professional lives.

From director Andrew Dominik, and based on the bestselling novel by Joyce Carol Oates, 'Blonde' boldly reimagines the life of one of Hollywood's most enduring icons, Marilyn Monroe. From her volatile childhood as Norma Jeane, through her rise to stardom and romantic entanglements, 'Blonde' blurs the lines of fact and fiction to explore the widening split between her public and private selves.—Netflix

Norma Jeane has an unhappy childhood with a mentally challenged abusive mother. As an adult her misery continues when she enters the big bad world of Hollywood where she is sexually exploited at every stage. Her dream of motherhood and a settled domestic life remains unfulfilled and she gets addicted to drugs. Her life goes into a downward spiral from where she does not recover.

Before becoming Marilyn Monroe and one of the greatest female pop culture icons of the 20th century, Norma Jeane suffered emotional and physical abuse from her unhappy, mentally unbalanced mother, Gladys Baker. Defined by a traumatic childhood and the deafening absence of a father figure, Norma Jeane transforms into dazzling Marilyn Monroe and tries to break into Hollywood's film industry. Instead, she receives abuse from all angles. And with people taking advantage of her, including husbands Joe DiMaggio and Arthur Miller, more and more, Marilyn Monroe finds herself split between her glamorous public persona and her maltreated private self. It is bitter, unkind reality that crushes Marilyn Monroe's confidence in herself, causing her to become increasingly dependent on drugs, more insecure, and more convinced that her dream of starting a family will never come true.—Nick Riganas

A moving portrayal of the eventful life and eventual demise of American idol Marilyn Monroe, admittedly not steeped in recorded fact, but based on hearsay and various rumors and allegations, which might or might not be off the mark. A tragic tearjerker with an unforgettable female lead in the ultimate period drama covering relevant events from the mid-fifties up to culmination in 1962. Not for the squeamish.—RavenGlamDVDCollector

As a young girl, Norma Jeane Mortenson (Ana De Armas) grows up raised by her mentally unstable mother Gladys (Julianne Nicholson). On her seventh birthday in 1933, she is given a framed picture of a man Gladys claims is her father. Later that night, a fire breaks out in the Hollywood Hills, and Gladys drives Norma Jeane up there, claiming that her father lives there, but is forced to go back home at the orders of the police. An enraged Gladys tries to drown Norma Jeane in the bathtub when she asks about her father but lets her go. Gladys says that Norma's father left Gladys as he didn't want Norma to be born. Norma Jeane escapes to her neighbor's house, who promises she will be fine. A few days later, Norma Jeane is sent to a foster home while Gladys is admitted to a mental hospital, having been declared unfit to raise a child. Norma is adamant that she is not an orphan yet is forced into the foster home.

By the 1940s, Norma Jeane becomes a pin-up girl under the stage name of "Marilyn Monroe," appearing on magazine covers and calendars. While trying to break into the acting industry, she is sexually assaulted by film studio president Mr. Z (David Warshofsky). She is severely traumatized and hides her angst by pretending that the reality only happened to her character named Marilyn. In 1950, she auditions for the role of Nell in Don't Bother to Knock. The audition goes poorly after she breaks down and leaves in tears, but she impresses the casting director enough to give her the part.

Norma visits her mother in hospital after 10 yrs, but she refuses to recognize her. Norma is under contract by the studio, where allegedly her father used to work. She wants her mother to confirm it, as she could not find anything in the studio files that contained her "father's" photo. As her acting career steadily rises, she meets Charles "Cass" Chaplin Jr. (Xavier Samuel) and Edward G. "Eddy" Robinson Jr. (Evan Williams), with whom she begins a Polyamorous relationship. Norma Jeane lands her breakout role in 1953 with Niagara, but after she is spotted in public with Cass and Eddy, she is told by a studio head to limit her appearances with them in public, which upsets her because she feels like her persona of Marilyn is just a role and not her true self.

Norma Jeane becomes pregnant, much to her delight, but eventually decides to have an abortion out of fear that the child might inherit Gladys' mental issues. However, on the day of the appointment, she changes her mind, but it is too late. Marilyn is a sensation, but Norma is getting paid $5000 per movie, while her co-stars are paid $100K per movie. She feels insulted.

She later meets Joe DiMaggio (Patrick Brennan), a retired athlete who sympathizes with her when she expresses her desire to leave Hollywood and become a more serious actress in New York City. As she films Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, she receives a letter from a man claiming to be her father (Tygh Runyan). Norma Jeane feels disconnected from her onscreen performance at the film's premiere, saying it is not her. She returns to her hotel room, having been told that someone is waiting for her. Expecting it to be her father, she instead finds Joe, who asks to marry her, which she accepts reluctantly.

Norma Jeane and Joe's marriage sours when Cass and Eddy give Joe some nude publicity pictures of her, which enrages Joe so much that he hits her and demands that she refuse to do The Seven Year Itch out of principle. However, she still goes through with filming, doing the famous publicity stunt with the white dress. When she gets home, a drunken Joe screams and gets physically violent with her. She divorces him shortly after.

In 1955, Norma Jeane auditions for the Broadway play Magda, written by renowned playwright Arthur Miller. During a read-through, her performance impresses everyone but Arthur. He eventually warms up to her when she gives him some insightful character analysis (Magda was Arthur's love and Norma points out that from the play it sounds like Magda was illiterate. Arthur's eyes light up as the truth). Norma Jeane and Arthur marry and move to Maine, where she lives a happy life with him and becomes pregnant. However, when walking on the beach one day with a platter of food, she trips and miscarries. Distraught, she returns to acting soon after.

While filming Some Like It Hot, Norma Jeane becomes more uncontrollable and mentally disturbed: she is overwhelmed by the constant press attention, feels like she is being made a joke of, has frequent outbursts on set, especially toward director Billy Wilder (Ravil Isyanov), and grows increasingly distant from Arthur. To cope with her stress, she begins taking pills.

By 1962, Norma Jeane has become dependent on drugs and alcohol. FBI agents take her to meet the president (Caspar Phillipson) (the 35th President of the United States), who forces her to Fellate him. Already dazed and drugged on pills, she begins to wonder if this is what being 'Marilyn Monroe' has led to, and she also hallucinates having another abortion and is sent back to her home in Los Angeles. She learns from Eddy on the phone that Cass has died and has left something to her, which she refuses to see at first but is convinced by Eddy, who sends it in a package in the mail. Cass' memento turns out to be the stuffed tiger plush that she had as a child, and the package also contains a letter where he confesses that the letters that Norma Jeane has been receiving, supposedly from her father, were actually from him.

Shattered by the revelation, Norma Jeane overdoses on barbiturates; as she dies on her bed, she has a vision of her father welcoming her to the afterlife.