'Blonde': Ana De Armas "Doesn't Understand" Film's NC-17 Rating, But Says Movie Had To Go To "Uncomfortable Places"

This year’s Venice Film Festival has several highly anticipated films in competition for the Golden Lion. But the festival’s most anticipated movie may arguably be Andrew Dominik’sBlonde.” Based on Joyce Carol Oates’s 2000 novel of the same name, “Blonde” may be the biopic to end all biopics. It’s an intimate, unflinching look at the life and career of iconic actress Marilyn Monroe – so unflinching that the MPAA gave the film an NC-17 rating in March for “some sexual content.”

READ MORE: ‘Blonde’: Marilyn Monroe’s Estate & Brad Pitt Praise Ana De Armas Casting Amid Backlash

An NC-17 rating usually spells box-office doom for any film that receives it, but “Blonde” avoids that issue thanks to Netflix. After its premiere at Venice, the film hits the streamer on September 28, while a limited theatrical release in the US begins on September 16. Still, “Blonde” star Ana de Armas disagrees with the MPAA’s adults-only rating of the film. The Hollywood Reporter reports that de Armas spoke out against the film’s NC-17 rating in an interview with French magazine L’Officiel, claiming that other recent movies and TV shows are more sexually explicit than “Blonde.”

“I didn’t understand why that happened. I can tell you a number of shows or movies that are way more explicit with a lot more sexual content than ‘Blonde,'” de Armas told the L’Officiel. “But to tell this story it is important to show all these moments in Marilyn’s life that made her end up the way that she did. It needed to be explained. Everyone [in the cast] knew we had to go to uncomfortable places. I wasn’t the only one.” It sounds like de Armas stands by the film and Dominik’s depiction of Monroe despite the MPAA’s controversial rating. From her comments, though, de Armas doesn’t appear to think that the film’s rating will jeopardize its critical success.

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But what does Andrew Dominik think about “Blonde” getting an NC-17 rating? After all, the film is a passion project for the director, as he first started developing it in 2010. In a February interview with Screen Daily, Dominik was unfazed by the film’s potential adults-only rating. In fact, he predicted and even welcomed that rating. “It’s a demanding movie,” he told Screen Daily. “If the audience doesn’t like it, that’s the fucking audience’s problem. It’s not running for public office. It’s an NC-17 movie about Marilyn Monroe; it’s kind of what you want, right? I want to go and see the NC-17 version of the Marilyn Monroe story.” In the interview, Dominik also mentioned that Netflix “insisted” on hiring editor Jennifer Lame, of “Tenet” fame, “to curb the excesses of the movie,” including a rape scene.  

While an NC-17 rating for any movie is rare, it’s not as if it ruins any chances of “Blonde” making an impact at Venice and on critics’ end-of-the-year lists. If anything, the rating gives the film an extra boost of publicity leading up to its world premiere. It also shows that Netflix is willing to finance auteurist projects like this one and back a director’s vision, even if they want some of the story’s excesses toned down. Regardless of its critical success, “Blonde” may end up the first of many NC-17 projects Netflix finances and distributes.

But before that potentially happens, “Blonde” still needs to have its world premiere on the Lido on September 8. Follow The Playlist coverage of the 79th Venice Film Festival here for our review of the film.