Reliving Marilyn

This is a film about Marilyn Monroe and the movies she made, focusing on the friendship between her and her make-up artist, Whitey.

The narrative structure includes many flashbacks, which adds to the emotional impact of Whitey's final promise to prepare Marilyn's body for her funeral.

Morgan Blackbyrne gives a moving performance as Whitey. We can see the love he had for Marilyn. Although there is no historical evidence of an affair between them, the film leaves us wondering, did Whitey only love Marilyn like a brother, or did he have stronger feelings that he couldn't act upon because he was married?

I especially enjoyed Nadine Banville's performance as Marilyn. Although Marilyn was a movie star, she had pain and insecurities like everyone else. In this film, we can relate to her like the girl next door.

Puhhh, that was a difficult tv-evening as it at times almost hurt to watch this badly made movie. You can tell immediately that the budget was small, very small. That's completely ok. Good acting and a decent script shouldn't have anything to do with a small budget.

The promise of the story of MMs friendship with her long-time make-up-artist is great. But unfortunately the story as told here is flat, very slow paced and plain boring. They could have done much more with it. The relationship between MM and Whitey seems distant and one-sided even though the try to stress the opposite in the movie. It just doesn't work...

The acting is very bad to the point one feels sorry for the actors that were also badly directed. At times the acting (specially the two leads) is over the top dramatic, at times just flat with the actors reciting the badly written text. The costumes (except MMs) are bad. Of course it's difficult to do period costumes on a tight budget, but come on... they could have done better, looking through the closets of their grandparents or borrowing from a local costume shop. Dean Martin looks like a scare crow with an ill-fitting suit, cheap wig and a hat that is way too small. Whoever put his costume together should have lost the job immediately.

I'm sorry for the harsh review. I am sure for the people making this movie it was a work of love and passion. But unfortunately it turned out to be a bad mess. I give it 2 stars for the authenticity of the costumes of the MM character.