Earlier this month, news broke that Netflix had handed a rare NC-17 rating to Andrew Dominik’s Marilyn Monroe biopic Blonde, which stars Knives Out and No Time to Die‘s Ana de Armas the Hollywood legend.
The streaming service were said to have acquiesced to Dominik’s final cut after they realized that they didn’t have an awards season contender on their hands, but a potential lightning rod for controversy instead. Having already buried Cuties under its own algorithm, Blonde could well be facing a similar fate based on the latest reports.
Vogue writer Hayley Maitland outlines in a Yahoo! Movies piece that Netflix are said to be actively frightened of releasing the film, and it’s little wonder based on the scene descriptions provided. One heavily dramatized encounter sees a 21 year-old Norma Jean’s career launched after a violent sexual assault is deemed worthy of “passing an audition”, while an earlier story from World of Reel indicated that Blonde was so sexually graphic in nature the platform were “horrified” at an early version of the film.
Despite all of that, de Armas’ performance is likely to put her in with a chance of awards season glory, but it sounds as though Blonde isn’t going to be for the faint of heart when it arrives at some point next year.
