Maybe it's time to leave Marilyn alone

Given all the indignities and horrors that Marilyn Monroe endured during her 36 years — her family tragedies, paternal absence, maternal abuse, time in an orphanage, time in foster homes, spells of poverty, unworthy film roles, insults about her intelligence, struggles with mental illness, problems with substance abuse, sexual assault, the slavering attention of insatiable fans — it is a relief that she didn’t have to suffer through the vulgarities of “Blonde,” the latest necrophiliac entertainment to exploit her. …

But by so insistently erasing the divide between these realms, Dominik ends up reducing Marilyn to the very image — the goddess, the sexpot, the pinup, the commodity — that he also seems to be trying to critique. There’s no there there to his Marilyn, just tears and trauma and sex, lots and lots of sex. It’s a baffling take, though particularly when he takes us inside Marilyn’s vagina — twice (!), once in color and once in black-and-white — while she’s having abortions. I’m still not sure if this is meant to represent the point of view of her cervix or fetuses, who also make appearances. It certainly isn’t Marilyn’s.

Dominik is so far up Marilyn Monroe’s vagina in “Blonde” that he can’t see the rest of her.