Blonde (2001 film)

{{Infobox television

| image = Blonde (film).jpg

| image_size =

| image_alt =

| caption =

| genre = Biographical/drama

| creator =

| based_on = {{based on|Blonde|Joyce Carol Oates}}

| screenplay = Joyce Eliason

| director = Joyce Chopra

| starring = Poppy Montgomery
Patricia Richardson
Patrick Dempsey
Jensen Ackles
Kirstie Alley
Ann-Margret

| narrated =

| theme_music_composer = Patrick Williams

| country = United States

| language = English

| num_episodes = 2

| producer = Brad Gordon

| editor = Deborah Zeitman

| cinematography = James Glennon

| runtime = 165 minutes

| company = Fireworks Entertainment
Robert Greenwald Productions

| budget =

| network = CBS

| released = {{Start date|2001|05|13}}

}}

Blonde is a 2001 American made-for-television biographical fiction film on the life of Marilyn Monroe, with Australian actress Poppy Montgomery in the lead role. The film was adapted from Joyce Carol Oates's 2000 Pulitzer Prize finalist novel of the same name.

Premise

A fictional biography of Marilyn Monroe mixed with a series of real events in her life. With glimpses into her childhood years, teenaged marriage to first husband Bucky Glazer, meeting with photographer Otto Ose, career with 20th Century Fox, relationship with her mother, her foster parents, Charles Chaplin Jr. (Cass), Edward G. Robinson Jr. (Eddie G), and her marriages to baseball player Joe DiMaggio and playwright Arthur Miller.

Cast

Poppy Montgomery as Norma Jeane Baker / Marilyn Monroe
Skye McCole Bartusiak as Young Norma Jeane
Patricia Richardson as Gladys Pearl Baker
Patrick Dempsey as Cass Bulut
Jensen Ackles as Eddie G.
Kirstie Alley as Elsie – Grace Goddard
Ann-Margret as Della Monroe
Wallace Shawn as I.E. Shinn – Johnny Hyde
Titus Welliver as The Baseball Player
Griffin Dunne as The Playwright
Eric Bogosian as Otto Ose
Niklaus Lange as Bucky Glazer – James Dougherty
Richard Roxburgh as Mr. R – Darryl F. Zanuck
Emily Browning as Fleece
Matthew O'Sullivan as Lee Strasberg
Andrew Clarke as Laurence Olivier
Shayne Greenman as Clark Gable
Renee Henderson as Jane Russell
Mark Lee as Porn Dealer
Mark Mitchell as Texas Oilman
Brett Tucker as Actor at White Party
Bernard Curry as Assistant to Director J.
Steven Vidler as Warren
Richard Morgan as Buddy 2

Reception

In the United States' review aggregator, the Rotten Tomatoes, in the score where the site staff categorizes the opinions of independent media and mainstream media only positive or negative, the film has an approval rating of 60% calculated based on five critics reviews. By comparison, with the same opinions being calculated using a weighted arithmetic mean, the score achieved is 3.3/10.{{cite news|url=https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1155861-blonde|title=Blonde|last=|first=|date=|website=Rotten Tomatoes |access-date=3 October 2022|archive-url=|archive-date=}}

Steven Oxman of Variety considered that Blonde's approach as a work of fiction instead of a "based on true events" retelling allowed creators "to be far more imaginative in their suppositions about the characters' private thoughts" than similar works.{{cite news|url=https://www.variety.com/review/VE1117798006?refCatId=32&ref=related|title=Blonde|last=Oxman|first=Steven|date=May 8, 2001|work=Variety|accessdate=December 19, 2019|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20120419192530/http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117798006?refCatId=32&ref=related|archivedate=April 19, 2012}}