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Blonde | 2022 | NC-17 | – 9.6.6

content-ratingsWhy is “Blonde” rated NC-17? The MPAA rating has been assigned for “some sexual content.” The Kids-In-Mind.com evaluation includes a rape scene without evident nudity, a graphic oral sex scene, an implied rough sex scene, a few scenes of sex between three people with partial nudity, many scenes of topless women, a few scenes of fully nude women, several scenes of a child being beaten including a drowning attempt, a few scenes of a woman being beaten, a car crash into a tree with no injuries, a few hallucinatory scenes, many arguments, scenes of yelling and rage, discussions of mental illness, two terminated pregnancies and one miscarriage, scenes of alcohol and drug use and abuse, and over 10 F-words and other strong language. Read our parents’ guide below for details on sexual content, violence & strong language.


A highly fictionalized account of Marilyn Monroe’s (Ana de Armas) glamorous but ultimately tragic life, based on the eponymous 2000 novel by Joyce Carol Oates. Also with Julianne Nicholson, Xavier Samuel, Evan Williams, Adrien Brody, Sara Paxton, Bobby Cannavale, Lucy DeVito, Garret Dillahunt, Scoot McNairy, Dan Butler, Toby Huss, David Warshofsky, Caspar Phillipson and Rebecca Wisocky. Directed by Andrew Dominik. [Running Time: 2:46]

Blonde SEX/NUDITY 9

 – A woman reads a script for a man in an office and he moves behind her, pushes her to her knees, raises her skirt (we see her underwear) and forces himself on her (she cries as we hear him thrusting and groaning).
 A nude man lies on a bed (he is wearing a girdle) with one leg bent to obscure his genitals when a woman enters the room and sits next to him; the man is on the phone and indicates to the woman that he wants her to stimulate him manually, he then pushes her head to his genitals and she performs oral sex on him (we hear him moaning and grunting until he climaxes) and we see her face as she moves rhythmically and we see flesh that seems to be her hand at her lips but gives the impression that it is his penis (she keeps repeating to herself, “Don’t gag, don’t puke”); when he climaxes, we see a rocket launching on a TV screen.
 A man covers a woman’s mouth with his hand and pushes her back onto a bed; we later see the woman disoriented and she vomits on the bed (we see goo), two men drag her out of the room, take her to a bathroom where she winces when urinating and we see her makeup smeared on her face and dress (implying abuse or rough sex). A man kisses a woman and another man kisses her neck, the three people have sex and we see distorted images of flesh and limbs (like in a carnival mirror) as they kiss and move around each other; one man holds the woman as she moans and the other man (off-screen) thrusts until she climaxes. Two men and a woman in a movie theater kiss and caress each other; one man manually stimulates the woman and she moans.
 Two men undress while talking to a woman (we see their bare chests, abdomens, backs and shoulders) and one man says that they have done pornographic movies together; one man unzips the woman’s dress and lowers it to reveal her bare breasts and abdomen. A woman walks through her house at night fully nude (we see her bare breasts, abdomen, buttocks and legs; please see the Violence/Gore category for more details). A woman closes her apartment door and we see that she is fully nude; her bare breasts, abdomen, pubic hair, legs and partial buttocks are seen. While holding her young daughter underwater in a bathtub (please see the Violence/Gore category for more details) a woman is shown topless and wearing petti-pants (her bare back and breasts are seen). Several photographs of a woman in various skimpy outfits are seen and a few are fully nude: we see bare breasts, abdomen, back, legs and buttocks and many images are in provocative poses. A man is given several photos of his wife where she is posing topless (we see her bare breasts and abdomen) and he becomes enraged (please see the Violence/Gore category for more details). In an extended scene a woman stands on a subway grate and her skirt blows up to reveal her bare legs to the hips and her underwear; she lingers on the spot while photographers take pictures and people watch and cheer and this pose is made into giant billboard sized displays and is seen in several other scenes. A woman wears low-cut dresses that reveal cleavage in many scenes. A woman wears a nightgown that reveals cleavage and bare shoulders. A woman in a movie wears an off-the-shoulder dress that reveals cleavage and bare shoulders. A woman sits in a bathtub and we see her bare shoulders and one bare leg. A man wears a tank T-shirt that reveals his partial chest and bare shoulders. A woman wears a slip that reveals cleavage, bare shoulders and bare legs to the upper thighs. A woman wears a cardigan over a swimsuit on the beach and we see cleavage and her bare legs to the hips. A woman wears a dress with sheer fabric and a series of beads that cover her nipples (we see cleavage through the fabric).
 A man seated next to a woman in a crowded theater caresses her bare knee and the woman recoils. A woman does a screen test and a man on the set remarks about her physical form as she walks away. A man and a woman kiss and hug. A man and a woman dance together. A woman throws kisses at a crowd of people cheering for her and she says, “I love, love, love you.”
 A woman tells two men in a car that her relationship with a man, “Has very little to do with sex.” A man talks about a room smelling stale with sexual references. A man says that he likes to watch himself in the mirror, even while on the toilet. A man tells a woman that she must end a relationship with two men and we see newspaper headlines describing their relationship as a threesome. A woman calls each of her two husbands, “Daddy.” A woman tells two men that she is pregnant. A wife tells her husband that she is pregnant.
 A woman arranges to terminate her pregnancy when she fears mental illness being hereditary; she is taken to a hospital where we see her on a surgical table with her feet in stirrups, she becomes upset, tells them to stop and runs out of the room (please see the Violence/Gore category for more details). Images of swimming sperm and an ovum are shown and later images of fetuses are seen. We see a speculum entering a vagina from the inside and we see a tube and hear suction.

Blonde VIOLENCE/GORE 6

 – A woman yells at her young daughter, she tells her to get in a bathtub and the child cries, saying that the water is too hot; when the child steps into the tub, the woman holds her underwater (trying to drown her) and the child struggles and gets away, running to a neighbor’s door and they help her. A husband grabs his wife by the face and hits her, he yells at her and pushes her off-screen as he pulls off his belt, and we hear thuds and whimpering implying that he is beating her with his belt.
 A woman reads a script for a man in an office and he moves behind her, pushes her to her knees, raises her skirt (we see her underwear) and forces himself on her (she cries as we hear him thrusting and groaning).
 A man is given several photos of his wife where she is posing topless and he becomes enraged; he speeds home, storms up the stairs, barges into the bedroom and hits her hard in the face knocking her to the floor. A woman slams her young daughter onto the seat of a car as she drives and hits her several times while yelling.
 A woman wakes her young daughter and carries her outside as ash blows through the air from a fire; we see flames in the hills in the distance and the woman drives her car toward the flames until she is stopped by a police officer that threatens to arrest her if she doesn’t turn around and the woman yells and tells the officer, “I wish you’d shoot me.” A woman flashes back to scenes when she was a child and her mother, in a rage, chased her around their apartment. A woman sobs while driving erratically before crashing into a tree (she stumbles away from the accident).
 A woman wakes with a start and walks through her house at night, she sees men with flashlights moving through the house and she hides under her blankets in bed until a man uncovers her and takes her away; we see her in an operating room where a man prepares to terminate a pregnancy (we see a speculum entering a vagina from the inside and we see a tube and hear suction); the woman wakes up in her bed with blood covering her abdomen and the sheets. A woman trips while walking on a beach and falls hard on her abdomen causing a miscarriage (we see blood on her dress and she screams). A woman arranges to terminate her pregnancy when she fears mental illness being hereditary; she is taken to a hospital where we see her on a surgical table with her feet in stirrups, she becomes upset, tells them to stop, runs out of the room and we see her in a house engulfed in flames as an infant cries from inside a dresser drawer. A woman imagines her fetus talking to her and asking if she is going to hurt her like before (when she terminated a pregnancy). A woman imagines seeing her fetus dying when she tripped and fell on her abdomen (we see the fetus and blood billows around it). A man covers a woman’s mouth with his hand and pushes her back onto a bed; we later see the woman disoriented and she vomits on the bed (we see goo), two men drag her out of the room, take her to a bathroom where she winces when urinating and we see her makeup smeared on her face and dress (implying abuse or rough sex).
 A woman takes a pill with a glass of liquor, then another and another, she lies down on her bed and drifts off; we see her motionless later and we understand that she is dead.
 Many scenes of throngs of people and press reach toward and photographing a woman with many flashbulbs popping; one scene shows men yelling and their mouths become unnaturally distorted, another has a tripod being tipped over and the sound startles a woman. Several scenes show a woman yelling while filming and storming off the set until people console her and inject her with drugs to calm her down; during one such scene she scratches herself on the face and we see streaks of blood.
 A woman yells at her young daughter and tells her that her father never wanted her and that’s why he left them. A man and a woman take a young girl to an orphanage and she resists, crying, “I’m not an orphan.” People dismiss a woman in several scenes assuming that she is not educated. A woman talks on the telephone to a man who asks her, “Is it your period?” and “Are you on painkillers?” A woman becomes upset when she is told how much she will be paid for an acting role compared to another the salary of another actress. A woman asks herself, “For this you killed your baby?” A husband asks his wife how he can help her and talks about the drugs she is taking. A man on a telephone call tells another man that his relationships with women can cause irreparable harm.
 A woman stumbles through the aisle of an airplane and spills a glass of champagne on a tray, she rushes into the bathroom where she vomits (the scene is shot so that the vomit is projecting toward the screen and we see goo). A woman in a movie scene opens a razor blade and holds it to her throat until the scene ends (we see that the character has a scar on her face); she imagines her mother standing off-stage telling her to cut herself. A woman in an acting class screams and cries on her knees on the floor and a man consoles her and calms her down. A woman’s hands shake and she seems distressed in many scenes. A woman is helped off an airplane where two men wait for her; she is afraid that she is going to be arrested and she lies down on the floor until the two men pick her up and carry her out. A woman wakes up screaming and when a man rushes to the room she tells him, “I thought I was dead”; we see that she has a cosmetic face mask on that makes her skin look red. A woman screams in anger and frustration.
 A woman is seen in a mental facility where we see other people wearing straitjackets and running around a room yelling; the first woman seems sedated and the woman turns to her adult daughter and says, “I don’t know you.” A woman seems to be mentally unstable and tells her young daughter that her father is a man in a photograph, that he is far away and that she is worried for his safety. A woman tells her young daughter that she slept in a dresser drawer when she was an infant and that they were too poor to afford a crib. A man says that he likes to watch himself in the mirror, even while on the toilet. A man says that he and another man are, “Juniors of men who never wanted us.” A woman receives letters from someone identifying himself as her estranged father in many scenes. A woman gets a phone call telling her that a man died; the caller describes, “He choked on his own puke,” and that it was, “A classic alky death.” A husband talks about his wife having morning sickness.
 A distressed woman in a movie scene pounds on a block of ice with an ice pick.

Blonde LANGUAGE 6

 – About 12 F-words, 6 sexual references, 4 scatological terms, 4 anatomical terms, 5 mild obscenities, name-calling (mentally unbalanced, honey, ridiculous, dumb, not very bright, sleepwalker, crazy, dirty slut, fairy tale, whore, tramp, disgusting, devious, Daddy, jackals, coward, disturbing, phony, sexpot, vulgar, crude, cruel, prude), exclamations (gosh I’m sorry, oh gosh), 1 religious profanity (GD), 17 religious exclamations (e.g. sweet Jesus, oh God, my God, oh my God, Jesus, for God’s sake, oh Christ). | profanity glossary |

Blonde SUBSTANCE USE

 – Several scenes show people injecting a woman with unidentified drugs, a woman takes an unidentified pill, a woman holds a handful of pills and adds more to them before taking them with a glass of champagne, and a woman takes numerous pills with a glass of liquor, killing herself. A woman pours a glass of liquor and drinks from it, a man holds a glass of liquor, a man drinks a glass of champagne, a man drinks liquor in a restaurant, glasses of wine are shown on a table where several women are seated, two men drink cocktails in a bar, three people on a beach hold beer bottles, a woman stumbles through a house while drinking from a glass of liquor and smoking a cigarette, many wine and liquor bottles are strewn around a woman’s house, and a man drinks from a bottle of champagne. Women smoke cigarettes in several scenes, a man smokes in bed, men and women smoke cigarettes in many scenes on movies sets as well as in restaurants and movie theaters, a woman walks through her house with a lit cigarette in her mouth, and several cigarette butts and pipes are shown in an ashtray.

Blonde DISCUSSION TOPICS

 – Mental illness, child abuse (mental and physical), rape, abandonment, publicity, suicide, betrayal, disappointment, being loved, knowing who you are, abortion, loneliness, shame, divorce, miscarriage.

Blonde MESSAGE

 – Abuse and abandonment can affect people deeply and celebrity thrown into the mix doesn’t make it better.

CAVEATS

Be aware that while we do our best to avoid spoilers it is impossible to disguise all details and some may reveal crucial plot elements.

We've gone through several editorial changes since we started covering films in 1992 and older reviews are not as complete & accurate as recent ones; we plan to revisit and correct older reviews as resources and time permits.

Our ratings and reviews are based on the theatrically-released versions of films; on video there are often Unrated, Special, Director's Cut or Extended versions, (usually accurately labelled but sometimes mislabeled) released that contain additional content, which we did not review.


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