STAR RATING: ***** Brilliant **** Very Good *** Okay ** Poor * Awful
Norma Jean arrived in Hollywood in 1946, a very young woman determined to make her mark. The product of a broken home and abusive childhood, she became Marilyn Monroe and became a sensation, redefining the typical perception of a female star, and responding to the changing social attitudes to sex on screen. However, her fragility and personal demons saw her stumble from one high profile relationship to another, before falling in with the Kennedy brothers, and their inner circle. Journalist Anthony Summers attempts to establish the facts about what was the driving force behind her untimely death.
For all the starlets that have followed since, Marilyn Monroe has retained a timeless, glamorous quality, that has endured coming up to sixty years after her death. Still greatly admired and emulated, the mystery around her death continues to develop new layers, and unravel new findings, which have been ripe for speculation by conspiracy theorists since before even the internet was around. Anthony Summers clearly has a profound interest in the case, and here has unearthed some tapes that shine new light on things.
Monroe is revealed as determined but humble, shy and awkward in an industry then (and, to a great extent now) dominated by men, but for all her success and appeal, fixed herself to strong, capable men, to make up for not having any kind of desirable father figure growing up. Observations like this delve in to who she was as a person, but at the expense of getting to what was behind her death, which only really comes in to focus at the end, even though the framework of the film seemed to be centred around this. Emma Cooper's film is carried by a haunting, melancholy score, which adds to the maudlin documentation of Monroe's life, but further detracts from what appeared to be the primary focus.
While it's a tragically fixating account of a damaged soul, by following this path, it spends its time throwing up a list of facts many will already know, without staying focused and really getting under the skin of how she met her end. ***
Norma Jean arrived in Hollywood in 1946, a very young woman determined to make her mark. The product of a broken home and abusive childhood, she became Marilyn Monroe and became a sensation, redefining the typical perception of a female star, and responding to the changing social attitudes to sex on screen. However, her fragility and personal demons saw her stumble from one high profile relationship to another, before falling in with the Kennedy brothers, and their inner circle. Journalist Anthony Summers attempts to establish the facts about what was the driving force behind her untimely death.
For all the starlets that have followed since, Marilyn Monroe has retained a timeless, glamorous quality, that has endured coming up to sixty years after her death. Still greatly admired and emulated, the mystery around her death continues to develop new layers, and unravel new findings, which have been ripe for speculation by conspiracy theorists since before even the internet was around. Anthony Summers clearly has a profound interest in the case, and here has unearthed some tapes that shine new light on things.
Monroe is revealed as determined but humble, shy and awkward in an industry then (and, to a great extent now) dominated by men, but for all her success and appeal, fixed herself to strong, capable men, to make up for not having any kind of desirable father figure growing up. Observations like this delve in to who she was as a person, but at the expense of getting to what was behind her death, which only really comes in to focus at the end, even though the framework of the film seemed to be centred around this. Emma Cooper's film is carried by a haunting, melancholy score, which adds to the maudlin documentation of Monroe's life, but further detracts from what appeared to be the primary focus.
While it's a tragically fixating account of a damaged soul, by following this path, it spends its time throwing up a list of facts many will already know, without staying focused and really getting under the skin of how she met her end. ***