Love, Marilyn

This is an HBO documentary about the life of Marilyn Monroe. Ostensively, 2 new boxes of personal papers has recently been founded in storage. It's not really strictly an organized personal journals. The movie is able to fit those writings with some of her experiences and other people's writings. It tells most of her story from her point of view. She comes off as a hard-working, ambitious, emotionally, and most of all smarter than her persona. I did find that the filmmakers treated her too much with kids gloves sometimes. Her sporadic work schedule is too easily explained away as her acting methodology. The girl had problems. The movie is a little too gentle with her.

Overall it's a fascinating look inside an icon. I wish it had more depth especially with her early life. It is interesting to see how driven she was as a young starlet. The other noteworthy aspect is the use of big name actors to read the writing. I'm willing to buy into so many different actresses reading Marilyn's writing. However I found the camera moves too much sometimes in an obvious visual attempt to inject feeling into those readings. It is more distracting than helpful. The movie should just let those actresses read.

This was a very good documentary. I learned a lot about MM and liked seeing old interviews with her and her friends and peers. The story, structure, music and editing were great and it was never dull. My only complaint is that I cringed many times, watching most of the actors read from Marilyn and others' letters and books. I felt that they emoted waaaaaay too much and were showing off. It felt like they agreed to recite the words or "act" for selfish reasons. It was over the top: especially Marisa Tormei, Uma Thurman and Adrian Brody. It called to much attention to the actors and was very distracting. It took me OUT of the film.

The film was about MM not these actors. At the very least, the should have been offscreen, only supplying a voice over. I suppose the director's argument would be that they were trying to convey the emotions of the subjects who had written the books, poetry, etc, but it was embarrassing and self serving. I will not see the film again for this single reason. This is a documentary. I don't want to see Hollywood actors overacting.

While it's interesting after a fashion to hear these actors read her journals and try to make them come alive, sometimes too empathetically, it becomes repetitive after a while. What could have added an extra needed dimension to this since they gathered such an amazing array of talent is to have these respected thespians, well except for Lohan, tell what value they found in Marilyn's work and what she meant to them. It would have added a more personal touch and since the actors involved are a broad spectrum of ages and techniques it would have shown how someone who was often dismissed as a lightweight had an impact on screen that bridged generations.

Still this is worth seeing, if for nothing else the clips of Marilyn. Only a few are different from the ones that are usually shown but as always she glows with an interior light.

Since Marilyn Monroe is one of my idols, I had to watch this documentary. I knew a lot about her already since she has been such a big part of my life but I was excited to see and hear Marilyn's own voice come to life in such a unique way. The movie takes you through the ups and downs of her life with commentary from great talents and other people in her life such as Milton Greene's widow, Amy Greene, friends and other actors/directors such as Jane Russell and Billy Wilder. I found myself crying throughout the whole documentary because we all know Marilyn's life was ended tragically but yet, everyone still sees her as just a sex symbol when really, that was the farthest from her real personality. Love, Marilyn takes you inside her mind by talents of this new era and it is thoroughly enjoyable.

I love Marilyn and this documentary was really great at showing more of her that I haven't seen before and things I really didn't know about her.

The one thing that I hated (which is why I gave it an 8/10) is the awful readings by all these actors. They did a horrible job and all overacted and exaggerated all her diary readings. For me that ruined the movie and it would have been awesome with just a unknown backperson reading as Marilyn.

The only ones who I thought did a good job was Lindsey Lohan and Elizabeth Banks, and that's because they just acted naturally.

But I just found myself getting confused about if it was them talking or them reading as Marilyn.

Overall though, I loved the new insight into Marilyns life and the hurtful ending to her life.