A haunting version of the song “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend” best known from the 1953 film musical Gentlemen Prefer Blondes plays in the background of the teaser trailer for Blonde, the biopic about late Hollywood icon Marilyn Monroe.
In the upcoming Netflix film directed by Andrew Dominik (Killing Them Softly), Monroe, who was born Norma Jeane Mortenson, is portrayed by actress Ana de Armas (Knives Out). The trailer, which is presented mostly in black and white, begins with de Armas’ Monroe sitting in front of a vanity mirror crying and praying. “Please come,” she says as a makeup artist wipes the tears from her face and tries to finish getting her ready. “Don’t abandon me.”
It’s not clear who de Armas is speaking about (maybe her mother), but it’s obvious that it would mean the world to her if this person did, in fact, show up to whatever performance she was preparing herself for. The makeup artist tries to ease her mind. “She’s coming,” they quietly tell her.
The trailer then cuts to de Armas standing in front of a group of photographers flashing their cameras at her while she poses for pictures. Her white dress blows up from behind her like the famous scene in her 1955 film The Seven Year Itch where she is caught standing above a subway grating.
“Andrew’s ambitions were very clear from the start – to present a version of Marilyn Monroe’s life through her lens,” de Armas told Netflix. “He wanted the world to experience what it actually felt like to not only be Marilyn, but also Norma Jeane. I found that to be the most daring, unapologetic, and feminist take on her story that I had ever seen.”
The rest of the trailer show Ana de Armas maneuvering her way through more photographers on the red carpet, the inside of a movie theater where one of her films is screening in color, and then back inside her dressing room where her reflection on the vanity mirror lets out a disturbing and forced laugh as if she’s trying to conceal her pain.
Blonde, which will be released with an NC-17 rating, will premiere on September 23, 2022, on Netflix.