New Netflix Film Gets Rare Adults Only Rating For 'Sexual Content'

Netflix's Marilyn Monroe biopic Blonde has been given a rare age rating in the US.

The film, which stars Ana de Armas, has finally been given an age rating – and the Motion Picture Association has deemed it unsuitable for younger audiences.

The age rating is said to be due to the film's explicit sexual content, with director Andrew Dominik previously noting that he expected as much for the age rating.

Alamy

According to reports, the biopic will be Netflix's first original film to be given an NC-17 rating, meaning it's not suitable for viewers under 17 years of age.

That means over in the UK it'll likely get an 18 age rating.

Dominik told Screen Daily: "It’s a demanding movie. If the audience doesn’t like it, that’s the f***ing audience’s problem. It’s not running for public office."

The director went on to add: "It’s an NC-17 movie about Marilyn Monroe, it’s kind of what you want, right? I want to go and see the NC-17 version of the Marilyn Monroe story".

Fair enough.

The film was initially due for released in 2021 but was since delayed and is expected to drop on the streaming service later this year.

Alamy

Blonde is based on Joyce Carol Oates' novel of the same name, which is a fictionalised account of Monroe's early life.

Oates said after seeing an early version of the film: "I have seen the rough cut of Andrew Dominik's adaptation and it is startling, brilliant, very disturbing and perhaps most surprisingly an utterly 'feminist' interpretation... not sure that any male director has ever achieved anything [like] this."

Meanwhile, Jamie Lee Curtis, whose father Tony Curtis starred with Monroe in Some Like It Hot, was floored by the film.

"I dropped to the floor. I couldn't believe it. Ana was completely gone. She was Marilyn", the actor said.

The film stars de Armas in the central role and sees Adrien Brody play Arthur Miller and Bobby Cannavale as Joe DiMaggio, both husbands of Monroe.

Alamy

Reportedly, de Armas spent months trying to perfect Monroe's voice for the role.

"It only took me nine months of dialect coaching, and practising, and some ADR (automated dialogue replacement) sessions. It was a big torture, so exhausting. My brain was fried," the actor told The Sunday Times.

The actor added that as a woman in the industry she felt 'things from the 1930s, 1940s, 1950s are so relatable to nowadays', and how important it is to have 'a strong base, with your family and so on' to see you through.

Topics: Celebrity, Netflix, TV and Film

Shola Lee