★★ Filming a myth is the most difficult thing for cinema: cinema fixes (although it doesn’t always shine or give splendor) and the myth is already fixed. Marilyn Monroe, that mystery, could only be played by Marilyn Monroe. Here she is imitated, not without talent, by Ana de Armas. This is the adaptation of the novel by Joyce Carol Oates and that we should take that as a paradigm. But Oates, like Norman Mailer in Deer Park and other notable writers, hates Hollywood and falls for all the commonplaces: the lewdness of producers, the idiocy of the press, vile metal as the north. Perfect material for today’s political correctness cinema. Here Marilyn is a poor girl whose problem was a) being pretty and b) needing her dad. Beyond Andrew Dominik’s style gossip (what a far cry from the funny and weird Chopper with a fat Eric Bana!), a Billiken lesson in morals and stale Freudianism that doesn’t do justice to either the myth or the (huge ) woman behind him. I’m sure he’ll win an Oscar.
