Marilyn - Ihr Leben

Well, being a big fan of Marilyn Monroe, and her life, I have to say this movie was not very good, and was a poor depiction of Marilyn's life. It seems that every other scene they did something wrong. I'm not picky, but facts are facts. First off, the way they had her die was completely and totally wrong. Second, they portrayed her as a dits who felt sorry for herself all the time. It wasn't like that. While she did have her share of problems, it wasn't as foolish as they made it out to be. I wouldn't rent this.

This film used a bit of gimmick casting; having one actress play the young and hungry starlet Norma Jean, and another playing 'Marilyn; after she had achieved fame and wealth. Add to that Marianne Davis, who plays Norma Jean when she was a frightened young girl being moved from place to place.

The movie is not entirely successful, because Sorvino plays Marilyn as her flighty image of the films rather than a logical continuation of the Norma Jean persona, making her death occur with a whimper rather than a grand crash. But it is very definitely worthwhile for seeing Ashley Judd play Norma Jean to the hilt as a woman whose delicate features overlay a soul of chromium steel, determined never to repeat the humiliations of her girlhood. It was an entirely different angle on Norma Jean/Marilyn to see her arrive late (!) for an audition and blithely push her way past other starlets to catch the attention of the producer; or watch her, in a fantasy sequence, run over her former hapless self in a car. I was sorry when 'Norma Jean's half' of the movie was over, and pleased to see her return briefly at the end.

I must say that this movie was very interesting, and more than a little disturbing. My knowledge of Marilyn info is not that expansive, but I thought the movie glossed over/fibbed/forgot about some important stuff in her life and chose to focus on the drugs/abuse/breakdown side of her personality. I adore both Ashley Judd and Mira Sorvino, but neither were very convincing as Marilyn in my humble opinion. (Altho Mira had her voice down pat) The movie was entertaining, but I felt it painted Marilyn more as "deranged over the edge Marilyn" than "gifted star with problems Marilyn".

As a huge fan of Marilyn Monroe, I was excited to see this movie. Mira Sorvino did a pretty good job portraying her, as did Ashley Judd. The story was just very dark, it shows Marilyn's abuse physically and sexually. She has also been abused emotionally by producers and directors. Although the story is very good, it is just very dark.

I saw this movie when it first premiered back in 1996 and I saw it again last night. I think that it's a good movie overall. Very good concept, screen-writing, and acting, but I don't even worry about the accuracy, because a lot of times in these type of "biographical" movies, theres always gonna be something different to it, especially when most of the people aren't alive to comfirm what is true and what's isn't.

I found this movie to be very interesting more than anything else and times it seemed very depressing; was Marilyn that sad? Ashley Judd is very impressive in this movie and her portrayal of Norma Jean's involvment in Marilyn's then-current life, is one of the reasons that makes this movie so interesting. Mira Sorvino was also very impressive, but I believe that the only fault in Sorvino's performance was that the writter's seemed to portray Marilyn as a dumb blonde, when I believe Marilyn was not even close to that. Sometimes it did seem kind of disrespectful, but I don't think that they really meant any harm by it, but they should've known. Don't go watching this film expecting accuracy, I think that's what too many people are expecting. Go to this film expecting to hear a possible side to this woman's life, not for the absolute and complete truth, cause you will not get it from this film. The only place you can get the truth is from the late Marilyn herself.