Solemplex To me, this movie is perfection.

Smartorhypo Highly Overrated But Still Good

Acensbart Excellent but underrated film

Fleur Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

SnoopyStyle This movie takes a look at the iconic legend from two sides of her persona. Norma Jean Dougherty (Ashley Judd) is the ambitious small town girl and Marilyn Monroe (Mira Sorvino) is the construct after the plastic surgery. She had an unstable mother and an absent father. Her aunt left her in the orphanage after her uncle made a pass. In Hollywood, the married model Norma Jean dates actor Eddie Jordan (Josh Charles) and uses his connections. She vows to be the biggest star ever. Despite the good news of her divorce, she is angrily jealous of Eddie signing a studio contract. She's willing to sleep around including Eddie's uncle Ted to get ahead. Through Ted, she gets to big Hollywood agent Johnny Hyde (Ron Rifkin).This has the feel of an unauthorized sensationalized TV biopic. Ashley Judd is acting for all her worth in this one. She also gets really naked. It seems desperate. Norma Jean had a desperate drive and I can't separate the story from the sense of movie-making. Nevertheless, it probably has more reality than fiction. This is not some high brow affair despite the high brow concept of two actresses playing the same role. The concept functions well. Mira Sorvino does a fine Monroe imitation although it doesn't feel real. This does try to do a psychological conflict between the two personalities although I like more the Monroe as a smart calculating performer rather than a tragic mental case. Everybody wants the tragic flaw. In the end, this is a functional TV biopic but it seems to be trying too hard for my taste.

hot_in_pink_hate_red I've seen this movie 4 years ago and I loved it. The only thing I didn't like about it, was that they painted Marilyn as a s*ut and they included stuff that NEVER happened to her in real life. She WASN'T sexually abused by her foster father, she WASN'T stupid, she NEVER had a female doctor when she was in therapy, she NEVER hated being referred to by her real name (Norma Jean), and she NEVER lied around with various men who we don't have much knowledge of who knew Marilyn and were depicted in the film. Ahsley Judd does a wonderful job playing Norma Jean, BEFORE she become Marilyn. But her portrayal of Norma Jean AFTER Marilyn comes in is so tepid and cruel. Mira Sorvino does an amazing job portraying Marilyn, AFTER Norma Jean is gone. She shows Marilyn as the sexy blonde bombshell that she is, but shows her as an emotional wreck who was ALWAYS insecure and feeling like her career-referring to the end of the film-would never come back. I still love this movie and the only thing I wish was that they keep it as true as possible and NEVER included stuff that was unfounded and misconceived.

Bill Goode Just exactly why the producers made this film I cannot understand. Now I am not familiar with the exact events of Marilyn Monroe's life, so I could not judge the accuracy of this film in depicting her life. But this film is totally disappointing in the depiction of her life. The question in my mind is "Did the producers & writers of this film truly enjoy telling the world how screwed up Marlilyn Monroe's life really was?" Did the producers really enjoy making this film? It is a pretty degraded purpose to tear up someone's life like this and expose it to the world as "entertainment", regardless of how accurate it is.To me films should serve as entertainment. The entertainment value of this film is absolute ZERO. It shows none of the happier moments of Marilyn's life, except in her childhood, but then it only goes downhill from there. There is nothing in this film that glorifies the most celebrated of all actresses.If you want some graphical depiction of the degraded points of Marilyn's life, then perhaps this film is for you. But if you are looking to be entertained, unless you are pretty sadistic, look elsewhere for entertainment. 1/10

bercg I'm sorry but Mira Sorvino was so bad in this movie it wasn't even funny. Her attempt to portray Marilyn as a simpering, simple minded bimbo was both misguided and upsetting. As the other reviewer commented, Marilyn Monroe's on screen persona was not the person she was in real life. It's almost as if Mira's interpretation was based on an impression she once saw somebody do of Marilyn. It wasn't even a good stereotypical impression of her. I have to say that Ashley Judd's Norma Jean was miles more interesting to watch than Mira's offering.This movie was poorly conceived, badly written and terribly acted. No-one could possibly hope to even come close to recreating what Marilyn brought to the screen or the effect she had when she walked into a room. How the makers of this movie thought that they could do it with such poor materials to work with is beyond me.