Norma Jean & Marilyn

This film used a bit of gimmick casting; having one actress play the young and hungry starlet Norma Jean, and another playing 'Marilyn; after she had achieved fame and wealth. Add to that Marianne Davis, who plays Norma Jean when she was a frightened young girl being moved from place to place.

The movie is not entirely successful, because Sorvino plays Marilyn as her flighty image of the films rather than a logical continuation of the Norma Jean persona, making her death occur with a whimper rather than a grand crash. But it is very definitely worthwhile for seeing Ashley Judd play Norma Jean to the hilt as a woman whose delicate features overlay a soul of chromium steel, determined never to repeat the humiliations of her girlhood. It was an entirely different angle on Norma Jean/Marilyn to see her arrive late (!) for an audition and blithely push her way past other starlets to catch the attention of the producer; or watch her, in a fantasy sequence, run over her former hapless self in a car. I was sorry when 'Norma Jean's half' of the movie was over, and pleased to see her return briefly at the end.

I must say that this movie was very interesting, and more than a little disturbing. My knowledge of Marilyn info is not that expansive, but I thought the movie glossed over/fibbed/forgot about some important stuff in her life and chose to focus on the drugs/abuse/breakdown side of her personality. I adore both Ashley Judd and Mira Sorvino, but neither were very convincing as Marilyn in my humble opinion. (Altho Mira had her voice down pat) The movie was entertaining, but I felt it painted Marilyn more as "deranged over the edge Marilyn" than "gifted star with problems Marilyn".

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.

The characterization in this movie and linking together of the plot was not very well done. At certain points in the movie you wonder whether some characters are imagined or real. In essence the continuity from scene to scene is not smoothly done. The one thing I did like about the movie was the use of an alter-ego to give the story-teller's impression of why the Marilyn did the thing she did.

For years, the 1996 HBO movie NORMA JEAN AND MARILYN has been maligned and skewered by critics and viewers alike because it was not an accurate biography of Marilyn Monroe. Frankly, if you're looking for an accurate film biography of Marilyn Monroe, there is no such animal (though the ABC-TV movie with Catherine Hicks is pretty close). NORMA JEAN AND MARILYN is not supposed to be a biography of Marilyn. So much has been written about Marilyn over the past 50 years, how can there be anything that people don't know at this point? That's why this movie took a different tack and presented a probing psychological drama that speculates about the inner demons that tormented Marilyn from her childhood as Norma Jean throughout her adult life as Marilyn. Ashley Judd lights up the screen as a young Norma Jean, the young woman determined to forget a loveless marriage to Jim Dougherty and carve out a career for herself as a movie star, even if she has to sleep her way to the top to do it. Norma Jean makes no bones about what she wants, even if it means using and abusing good friend Eddie Jordan (Josh Charles)to get to his famous uncle as an "in" to the Hollywood crowd. The screenplay splices together fantasies and inner dialogues with some actual events in Norma Jean's life in order to give us a look into Marilyn's psyche. Once Norma Jean gets signed to Fox and she changes her name to Marilyn Monroe, Mira Sorvino takes over the role in an uncanny reincarnation of the screen's greatest sex symbol. Sorvino is warm and heartbreaking as Marilyn, recreating some of Marilyn's greatest on screen moments with frightening accuracy while at the same time beautifully conveying the decay of Marilyn's mind, thanks to booze, pills, men, and the treatment she received from studio heads, acting coaches, and others who tried to help her. What makes this film unique and indicates that it is not just a typical biopic is that after Sorvino takes over the role, Ashley Judd still appears as the inner Norma Jean, coaching and encouraging Marilyn to do the right thing and ridiculing her when she does the wrong thing. This movie is an examination of the inner Marilyn who lived in constant mental anguish and was never satisfied with anything she ever did or any relationship she had. The movie is well-written with flashbacks and flash forwards that require close attention in order to stay with the story but it is well worth it. Sorvino and Judd receive solid support from David Dukes as Arthur Miller, Peter Dobsono as Joe DiMaggio, Ron Rifkin as Johnny Hyde, and Lindsay Crouse as Natasha, Marilyn's acting coach who, according to this film,was in love with her. This is a haunting and disturbing film that will not answer all your questions about her, but might help you to understand what a tormented soul she was. If you're looking for a biography of Marilyn, go to a library and check out a book on Marilyn. If you're looking for a unique film experience about a side of Marilyn we rarely saw, then give NORMA JEAN AND MARILYN a look.