Simon Curtis
Marylin

What is a myth in contemporary culture?

Obviously, the answer depends on the field in question and the subject matter. In the case of Marilyn, it's a popular myth, something that goes beyond the human and everyday dimension of whoever creates the myth in question. After her death, Marilyn Monroe became something unique and sensational. There isn't a person in the world who hasn't heard her name at least once and who couldn't describe, albeit briefly, her image. Her blue eyes, her blonde hair, her dazzling smile, her curvy figure, and her slightly ditzy and confused demeanor... All of this has forcefully entered the collective imagination of the world population. Loved or hated, everyone knows Marilyn Monroe, and this is where her myth has deep roots: in having become, in some way, one of the unavoidable images and names of the average culture of contemporary man.

Someone came up with the idea of making a film about her drawing inspiration from the diaries of assistant director Colin Clark, who worked with her on the making of the film "The Prince and the Showgirl" (Dir. Laurence Olivier - 1957), which "Marilyn" recounts the making of.

At this point, the question was: how to present Marilyn to the public? There could have been multiple answers: myths, in fact, have the peculiarity of lending themselves to any kind of reading possible, and thus cinema often resorts to their representation. The screenwriters of Marilyn chose to present their protagonist in two dimensions: when Marilyn, just arriving in England, gets off the plane and holds a press conference with the cast of the film she is about to shoot, she is still the public Marilyn, the one the public and media unceasingly praise, with an image that nothing could mar, an image meant to dazzle the viewer. The other dimension is the private one, which, little by little, allows us to rediscover the woman behind the myth; a deeply fragile and insecure woman for whom every gesture, even the most insignificant, is a battle against herself and against the countless fears that grip her, whom the viewer begins to feel ever closer to themselves and their own reality, almost forgetting that the woman falling apart before their eyes was, back then and perhaps even today, the most famous star in the world.

This is where the film's intelligence lies, in dazzling the viewer with Marilyn's entrance as a universal myth and gradually bringing her closer by illuminating the aspects that made her a person like any other, thereby making her human to those watching, who can finally identify with her or those beside her and feel the anguish and sorrow that hover around her for most of the film.

As for the other aspects of the film, it's worth mentioning that it is essentially a film of actors, and there isn't a single one who isn't perfectly in character.

Michelle Williams delivers one of those once-in-a-lifetime performances, making you forget that it's not the real Marilyn you're watching. Eddie Redmayne plays Colin Clark, our "point of view," and he plays it as well as anyone could ask, becoming the perfect vehicle for the audience's emotions as he is the "common" man suddenly catapulted into the world of great cinema, allowing us to perfectly relate.

Kenneth Branagh's Laurence Olivier deserves particular mention. Always considered Olivier's heir in both theater and on screen, Branagh doesn't resemble him physically much, but it's impressive how he manages to immerse himself in the character and bring to life the great actor and complicated man that the great Olivier was. His magnetic gaze, his haughtiness, his elegance, his sophistication, his charm, his, to sum it all up in one word, uniqueness is all present in Branagh's outstanding performance, which does justice to perhaps the greatest English actor of his century and surely the greatest Shakespearian interpreter ever.

In short, a great film, as it approaches the subject matter with humility and without particular pretenses other than to restore the characters in all their complexity, succeeding perfectly.