Ana de Armas Is Marilyn Monroe in Scintillating First Teaser for Netflix's Blonde

Regardless of the final outcome, casting Ana de Armas in a biopic as Marilyn Monroe was always going to result in a lot of attention. That’s exactly what Netflix did for Blonde, an adaptation of Joyce Carol Oates’ 2000 historical fiction novel of the same name. But rather than being a surface level biopic that hews to the typical Hollywood standards, early buzz on Blonde has suggested that this film will ultimately be much stranger, more intense and challenging than many audience members are likely expecting. And we get little hints of that in the first teaser for the film, which you can see below. It’s the first images in motion we’ve seen of Ana de Armas taking on the role of the woman who was arguably the U.S.A’s most famous sex symbol.

Blonde is directed by Andrew Dominik, he of The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford and One More Time With Feeling. Notably, it’s rated NC-17, and although most reports suggest this is for “sexual content,” those who have seen early cuts of the film have also suggested that it contains both disturbingly surreal content and scenes of intense violence. In short, it seems that the filmmakers have not shied away one bit from depicting the best and worst moments of Marilyn Monroe’s life.

Oates, in fact, has seen a rough cut of Blonde and called it “startling, brilliant, very disturbing & perhaps most surprisingly an utterly feminist interpretation … not sure any male director has ever achieved anything like this.”

(just a parenthetical aside—I have seen the rough cut of Andrew Dominick’s adaptation & it is startling, brilliant, very disturbing & [perhaps most surprisingly] an utterly “feminist” interpretation… not sure that any male director has ever achieved anything this.) https://t.co/zUubjH5yqV
— Joyce Carol Oates (@JoyceCarolOates) August 10, 2020

Clearly, this will be a film to keep an eye on, and one has to wonder if a major awards campaign could be in store for Armas. Blonde hits Netflix on Sept. 23, 2022. In the meantime, check out the teaser below.

Ana de Armas Is Marilyn Monroe in Scintillating First Teaser for Netflix’s Blonde