Norma Jean & Marilyn (1996)

Very Cool!!!

Am i the only one who thinks........Average?

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

I saw this at my friends house who said it was great so i watched it and i thought it was dreadful! who did the research? There were so many errors, the biggest one that bugged me was in the scene where she got her stage name, in the movie it said she got her last name from a president, wrong! in actuality Marilyn got her last name from her mothers maiden name (monroe) however in the movie and real life she did get her name from Marilyn Miller. The next at the end, it implied that she died in the bedroom, that may have well been where she took the pills that lead to her demise, but she didn't die there she died in the bedroom everyone knows that. Mira Sorvino usually is a good actress, but this was poor, she softened her voice, however she didn't achieve Marilyn's seductive, breathless voice and she portrayed her as dumb when Marilyn was as opposite to the public's opinion was smart and shy not like that. Ashley Judd however was interesting to watch as Norma Jeane, it surprises my why Ashley agreed to that movie as she has been in so many great pictures. Terrible film!

I am a big fan of Marilyn. I have studied about her life, as both Norma Jeane and Marilyn for years now. I was terribly disappointed in this film. It did not do her justice. Most of it is weak fiction and embellished. I had to turn it off because I could not stand how they turned my beloved heroine into a trashy, stupid, cheap whore. I hated this movie more than any other movie I have seen before. If you really want to learn about Marilyn, I suggest reading Donald H. Wolfe's book "The Last Days of Marilyn Monroe" or watch a documentary about her.For fans who do not know about her and just buy the purses and merchandise because of her goddess status, then you might enjoy this film. But it is not true. It is a work of fiction. The actors tried their best with what they were given but that didn't go far.

When Joe DiMaggio died, Jill Isaacs, the writer of this movie, wrote a piece for the Los Angeles Times about him and Marilyn Monroe that I found moving. It made me wonder what was it about her which compelled his devotion. I was reminded of that as I caught this the other night, and I thought: why didn't Isaacs write about THAT instead of churning out this dreck?The only original thing here is two Marilyns for the price of one -- kind of like splitting the atom, if you ask me. Imagine Frankenstein and the Creature - each with his own hangups - in the same body, and you get an idea of what it was like to be Marilyn Monroe (based on what I've read, anyway).Isaacs offers no insight into how or why Monroe became what she became. You can say it was her childhood, but countless others have had miserable childhoods, too. Why did she go into the movies? Most importantly, how did she create Marilyn Monroe? Even after she became the biggest star in the world, she continued to refine the persona with huge chunks of her "real self". I think the reason for Monroe's enduring appeal is that her "real self" was a genuinely nice person, and not the calculating harpy that we get here.Then there are the campy moments. What was Isaacs trying to do? You don't just stumble upon a brilliant career. What about talent? Determination? Dedication to one's craft? Instead, we get a vapid creature who sleeps her way to the top, and tramples on virtually everyone unfortunate enough to cross her path. As a result, I found myself waiting for her to kick off.The fact Judd and Sorvino come THIS CLOSE to overcoming all that is a credit to them as actors.

I'm sorry but Mira Sorvino was so bad in this movie it wasn't even funny. Her attempt to portray Marilyn as a simpering, simple minded bimbo was both misguided and upsetting. As the other reviewer commented, Marilyn Monroe's on screen persona was not the person she was in real life. It's almost as if Mira's interpretation was based on an impression she once saw somebody do of Marilyn. It wasn't even a good stereotypical impression of her. I have to say that Ashley Judd's Norma Jean was miles more interesting to watch than Mira's offering.This movie was poorly conceived, badly written and terribly acted. No-one could possibly hope to even come close to recreating what Marilyn brought to the screen or the effect she had when she walked into a room. How the makers of this movie thought that they could do it with such poor materials to work with is beyond me.