If you're looking to see the "true story" of Marilyn Monroe's life you're probably better off skipping this movie. Norma Jean & Marilyn takes great liberties with the facts in trying to spice up the drama. There are plenty of half-truths and flat-out non-truths littered throughout. But if you can get past that you may find that this still manages to be a reasonably worthwhile movie. It's not an accurate biographical account of Marilyn Monroe's life, it's a dramatization. And not a bad dramatization at that.
This is a movie with a gimmick in that there are two Marilyn Monroes. Ashley Judd plays the icon in her younger days as unknown Norma Jean. Mira Sorvino takes over when Hollywood transforms Norma Jean into Marilyn Monroe. But we have not heard the last of Norma Jean as Judd continues to pop up now and again as an inner voice so to speak, sometimes to encourage and sometimes to berate and ridicule Sorvino's Marilyn. The point being that young Norma Jean desperately wanted to be a star and refuses to allow Marilyn to screw things up. Suffice to say these constant appearances by her younger self do not help Marilyn's state of mind as her life begins to spiral out of control towards her inevitable sad end. The two lead actresses perform their roles well. Judd is pitch-perfect as the desperate, driven Norma Jean. Sorvino is pretty much stuck doing a Marilyn Monroe impersonation but she makes the best of what she has to work with. As presented here the character may come off as a bit too much of a dumb blonde bimbo to really ring true. Surely, for all the myriad issues she had, the real Monroe was brighter than she's given credit for here. But it's hard to blame Sorvino, she can only portray the character as it was written. All in all it's a fairly gripping, if not entirely truthful, drama. And having two actresses play the famed icon at different points in her life adds a unique twist. This is clearly no work of genius but if you're looking for a reasonably entertaining movie you could do a lot worse.
This is a movie with a gimmick in that there are two Marilyn Monroes. Ashley Judd plays the icon in her younger days as unknown Norma Jean. Mira Sorvino takes over when Hollywood transforms Norma Jean into Marilyn Monroe. But we have not heard the last of Norma Jean as Judd continues to pop up now and again as an inner voice so to speak, sometimes to encourage and sometimes to berate and ridicule Sorvino's Marilyn. The point being that young Norma Jean desperately wanted to be a star and refuses to allow Marilyn to screw things up. Suffice to say these constant appearances by her younger self do not help Marilyn's state of mind as her life begins to spiral out of control towards her inevitable sad end. The two lead actresses perform their roles well. Judd is pitch-perfect as the desperate, driven Norma Jean. Sorvino is pretty much stuck doing a Marilyn Monroe impersonation but she makes the best of what she has to work with. As presented here the character may come off as a bit too much of a dumb blonde bimbo to really ring true. Surely, for all the myriad issues she had, the real Monroe was brighter than she's given credit for here. But it's hard to blame Sorvino, she can only portray the character as it was written. All in all it's a fairly gripping, if not entirely truthful, drama. And having two actresses play the famed icon at different points in her life adds a unique twist. This is clearly no work of genius but if you're looking for a reasonably entertaining movie you could do a lot worse.