Who was Marilyn Monroe? On one hand, there was the early Hollywood icon who has been culturally picked dry as a “sex symbol” for decades. She’s the one whose face and body is CGI’d to drape modern fashions upon, a lock of whose hair is offered as a collective trinket to a modern celebrity who never knew her. But on the other hand, there’s Norma Jean Baker, the girl Marilyn was behind the carefully orchestrated image of a siren fit for a president—and in the first full trailer for Netflix’s Blonde, the two women are in a losing battle with each other.
Directed by Andrew Dominik, the highly-anticipated new film stars Ana de Armas as the tragic icon. Shot in a mix of black-and-white and color (presumably aligning to era), the trailer is full of carefully stylized shots of Armas capturing Marilyn’s most memorable moments: The upturned white dress as she stands above the sewer grate, the JFK serenade, the pink glove-clad arms extended while crooning “Diamonds Are A Girls Best Friend.”
There’s also glimpses of Adrien Brody as Arthur Miller, escorting a fully made-up Marilyn away from flashbulbs and into limousines and Bobby Cannavale as Joe DiMaggio, sharing a loving glance with a fresh-faced Marilyn as they lounge together on a sun-drenched windowsill.
Through voiceover, however, it’s clear Marilyn’s life as the world’s biggest movie star is far more complicated than red-lipstick smiles and fabulous couture. “I know you’re supposed to get used to it,” Marilyn laments of fame, “but I just can’t.”
Not only can she not get used to constant scrutiny and stardom, Marilyn can barely survive the weight of it. She lashes out at others, but mostly at herself, clawing her face until it bleeds, imaging herself in a coffin, and crashing her car into a tree while fitful with rage and frustration. No one—not Miller, not DiMaggio, no agent nor adoring fan—can save Marilyn from her war with herself, and the excruciating disassociation she feels between who she is on and off the screen. “Marilyn Monroe only exists on the screen,” she says as the trailer concludes, a look of resigned anguish settling on her perfectly primped face.
Blonde will be available for streaming on Netflix starting September 28.
