Marilyn Monroe was probably the most famous woman on Earth when she took her life in a drug overdose in 1962, but could she possibly have imagined her life and image would still be so vigorously exploited a full half-century after her death?
Liz Garbus’ documentary “Love, Marilyn,’’ like many of its predecessors (and more than 1,000 books), recycles the well-known story of Monroe as the self-destructive victim of various business associates and the men in her life — just like last year’s fanciful biopic “My Week With Marilyn.’’
Garbus, a respected filmmaker, gooses a familiar collection of archival clips and still images — including a long, lingering look at the infamous nude calendar photo Monroe posed for around 1950 — with dramatic readings of long-unseen diary entries, notes and letters by the actress that were published in 2010.
Monroe’s words are read by an impressive array of actresses — including Glenn Close, Elizabeth Banks, Lili Taylor and Lindsay Lohan — presumably in an attempt to represent different aspects of her personality.
This doesn’t really work, especially when Uma Thurman goes way over the top. I wished Garbus had given all the readings to Marisa Tomei, who does the most subtle and incisive work, or Evan Rachel Wood, who comes close.
But it was a mistake to ask anyone to dramatically read a chicken recipe Monroe prepared for Joe DiMaggio (one of her husbands), or some of the other scribbles included here.
A group of equally celebrated actors has been brought in to more successfully read the words of male celebrities: Monroe’s husband Arthur Miller (David Strathairn), biographer Norman Mailer (Ben Foster) and directors George Cukor (Paul Giamatti), Billy Wilder (Oliver Platt) and Elia Kazan (Jeremy Piven).
It’s still the same old sad story: The illegitimate daughter of a mentally ill woman who, with the help of her first acting coach, reinvents herself as Hollywood’s biggest postwar sex symbol.
And then she fights to escape the image she’s helped create — betrayed along the way by many as she finally struggles unsuccessfully with drugs and depression.
“Love, Marilyn’’ is slicker than most attempts to document Monroe’s successes and tragic trajectory, but even her own words don’t provide much more of an insight into what made this troubled icon tick.