I really have no desire to review this film - there's nothing I could say that hasn't been said already a thousand times over. I feel the need, instead, to convey my personal experience while watching the movie, and what it meant to me.
My love affair with Marilyn Monroe began years and years ago, when I was in my teens. I'd read an article by an author who'd given a possible take on the star's final hours from her own point of view, and her story kind of got inside me and never went away. I feel fiercely protective of her and her image to this day, and it is for that reason that I hesitated to even see this film. I love Michelle Williams (I'd even cast her in the film adaptation of my first book, if I could), and I could tell from the trailers that she did a good job being Marilyn - but would she do as well portraying Norma Jeane? I knew the tale was told from yet another man's perspective on the icon, and I was not at all sure that I wanted to see what he had to say. I wasn't sure I even cared.
When I found out that the film would soon be released on DVD and Blu-Ray, I decided that it would make the perfect first order through Rogers On Demand for me. I could watch it in the privacy of my own home, and it would be cheaper than seeing it in a theatre, anyway, just in case I wasn't happy with what I saw. But then I started thinking: Marilyn died a decade before I was born. I've only seen a handful of her films, and none of them on the big screen. It occured to me that this might be my first opportunity to sit in a dark theatre and see her larger than life - the way people saw her at the height of her career. Even knowing it wasn't really her, I was suddenly consumed by the desire to fall in love with Marilyn the way the rest of the world had at the time; the way she'd created herself to be seen - on the silver screen.
So, on easily the nicest day we've seen so far this year, I made my way through the sunshine and crowded streets to the small theatre near my apartment that I knew was still screening the film. I settled in with my popcorn and soda in the dark with about 5 other people, and waited for my experience to begin.
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