Boobirt Stylish but barely mediocre overall

Contentar Best movie of this year hands down!

Aneesa Wardle The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Kaelan Mccaffrey Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

af-fet_ne_olur at first Mira sorvino and Ashley Judd aren't as beautiful as Marlyn Monroe. they are really bad and there was many wrong things about Marlyn in this movie. i don't want to reckon because it takes me so long.Ashley Judd plays the icon in her younger days as unknown Norma jean. Mira sorvino takes over when Hollywood transforms Norma jean into Marlyn Monroe.Ashley Judd and Mira sorvino are so different from each other. they are looking different. this is really bad.i must say that this movie was very interesting and a little disturbing. this is horrible portrayal of the legendary Marlyn Monroe. if Marlyn Monroe was as dumb as this movie made her out to be. we wouldn't be celebrating her legacy as we are today. Marlyn Monroe was a brilliant woman. she had a heart but this movie made her cold and without a soul..and last i think Michelle Williams more successful Ashley Judd and Mira sorvino and she must play this film.

That_Beatles_Girl Some movies, like "Santa Conquers the Martians" or "Evil Dead", are so hilariously bad that you just have to laugh at them. This is not one of those movies. When I decided to watch this movie I thought, "Oh, cool, a movie about Marilyn. Most of these are pretty poorly done, but I'll watch it anyways just because I'm a fan." Big mistake. This movie is sensationalistic, features gratuitous nudity, and does not accurately portray the life of Marilyn Monroe. Most of the acting in this movie is incredibly crappy, especially from the young actresses who played Marilyn as a child or teenager. Ashley Judd, bless her soul, is just not believable, as a lost soul or as a sex symbol. This movie was so terrible that I turned it off after less than half an hour. The themes of Marilyn being molested are frankly quite disturbing and I don't see why anyone would want to watch this movie. I have nothing good to say about this movie, aside from the fact that it probably saved the studio a bit of money to make, as it is so cheaply and poorly done.

ldavis-2 When Joe DiMaggio died, Jill Isaacs, the writer of this movie, wrote a piece for the Los Angeles Times about him and Marilyn Monroe that I found moving. It made me wonder what was it about her which compelled his devotion. I was reminded of that as I caught this the other night, and I thought: why didn't Isaacs write about THAT instead of churning out this dreck?The only original thing here is two Marilyns for the price of one -- kind of like splitting the atom, if you ask me. Imagine Frankenstein and the Creature - each with his own hangups - in the same body, and you get an idea of what it was like to be Marilyn Monroe (based on what I've read, anyway).Isaacs offers no insight into how or why Monroe became what she became. You can say it was her childhood, but countless others have had miserable childhoods, too. Why did she go into the movies? Most importantly, how did she create Marilyn Monroe? Even after she became the biggest star in the world, she continued to refine the persona with huge chunks of her "real self". I think the reason for Monroe's enduring appeal is that her "real self" was a genuinely nice person, and not the calculating harpy that we get here.Then there are the campy moments. What was Isaacs trying to do? You don't just stumble upon a brilliant career. What about talent? Determination? Dedication to one's craft? Instead, we get a vapid creature who sleeps her way to the top, and tramples on virtually everyone unfortunate enough to cross her path. As a result, I found myself waiting for her to kick off.The fact Judd and Sorvino come THIS CLOSE to overcoming all that is a credit to them as actors.

SlawDawg I feel a need to defend this movie, at least against the charges that it doesn't present accurate characterizations of Marilyn Monroe. First of all, for someone to decide that Mira Sorvino plays Marilyn as an extension of her screen persona and not as she "really was" is specious at best. The way public figures behave off-camera isn't exactly something we as an audience can make a decision on. You don't know what happens behind those closed doors. That's why they're closed, so you can't see what's going on. But, really, that's beside the point. Whether or not Marilyn was truly like Sorvino plays her isn't really an issue. The surreal qualities of Norma Jean & Marilyn give ample indication that the filmmakers had no intention to go out and make a straightforward biopic. What they have in mind here is more complex. As heavy-handed as it may be, the symbolism is the real focus of the movie. Marilyn Monroe had two identities, and Sorvino and Ashley Judd go to great pains to illustrate in no uncertain terms that these two identities were in conflict with one another. The very different characterizations aren't saying that Marilyn was two different people. They are simply a case of filmmakers taking dramatic license to exaggerate something for the sake of making it clearer: Norma Jean Dougherty reinvented herself in her mind as someone who could get what she couldn't get herself. Try not to think of this film as a study of Monroe's outward change from Norma Jean to Marilyn. Think of it as more of a look inside her head, as an analysis of all the motives and frustrations bouncing around in her mind, and ultimately serving to identify her more than any physical appearances could ever do. It doesn't matter whether or not she really saw the word "Bourbon" and read it as "Bonbon." As the film lays it out, this is her image of herself, and in reflex, everyone else's image of her.And then there are those who will complain that it isn't right to speculate on someone's image of herself. But you can't ask a film to stick completely to facts. Conjecture is what makes nonfiction interesting. And it is what makes Norma Jean & Marilyn interesting.On the acting and in response to those who see the film as "soapy" and "campy": Life is a soap opera. Most of us are able to keep that at bay and live life as a perfectly reasonable chain of events. But desperate people historically are not able to do that. Drama is what they have, and drama is how they can get results. Marilyn, as the film puts it (and remember, you need to always look at a film like this on its own merits, especially when it doesn't portray itself as factual, which this one emphatically does not) is one of these desperate people, and the script respects that as a mean to that untimely end. Mira Sorvino's performance understands this. Yes, it's pretty wooden at first, but by the time she sings Happy Birthday to President Kennedy, hopped up on her crutch of barbituates and alcohol, her Marilyn has become fully realized in the downward spiral that will eventually take her life. Coupled with Ashley Judd's commanding performance as the girl who can only get what she wants by becoming someone else, and Sorvino's performance makes a full, tragic character, keeping to that perception of Marilyn Monroe as the eternal blonde bombshell legend.