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Surprisingly incoherent and boring

Great Film overall

The acting in this movie is really good.

This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

If you're looking to see the "true story" of Marilyn Monroe's life you're probably better off skipping this movie. Norma Jean & Marilyn takes great liberties with the facts in trying to spice up the drama. There are plenty of half-truths and flat-out non-truths littered throughout. But if you can get past that you may find that this still manages to be a reasonably worthwhile movie. It's not an accurate biographical account of Marilyn Monroe's life, it's a dramatization. And not a bad dramatization at that.This is a movie with a gimmick in that there are two Marilyn Monroes. Ashley Judd plays the icon in her younger days as unknown Norma Jean. Mira Sorvino takes over when Hollywood transforms Norma Jean into Marilyn Monroe. But we have not heard the last of Norma Jean as Judd continues to pop up now and again as an inner voice so to speak, sometimes to encourage and sometimes to berate and ridicule Sorvino's Marilyn. The point being that young Norma Jean desperately wanted to be a star and refuses to allow Marilyn to screw things up. Suffice to say these constant appearances by her younger self do not help Marilyn's state of mind as her life begins to spiral out of control towards her inevitable sad end. The two lead actresses perform their roles well. Judd is pitch-perfect as the desperate, driven Norma Jean. Sorvino is pretty much stuck doing a Marilyn Monroe impersonation but she makes the best of what she has to work with. As presented here the character may come off as a bit too much of a dumb blonde bimbo to really ring true. Surely, for all the myriad issues she had, the real Monroe was brighter than she's given credit for here. But it's hard to blame Sorvino, she can only portray the character as it was written. All in all it's a fairly gripping, if not entirely truthful, drama. And having two actresses play the famed icon at different points in her life adds a unique twist. This is clearly no work of genius but if you're looking for a reasonably entertaining movie you could do a lot worse.

Some movies, like "Santa Conquers the Martians" or "Evil Dead", are so hilariously bad that you just have to laugh at them. This is not one of those movies. When I decided to watch this movie I thought, "Oh, cool, a movie about Marilyn. Most of these are pretty poorly done, but I'll watch it anyways just because I'm a fan." Big mistake. This movie is sensationalistic, features gratuitous nudity, and does not accurately portray the life of Marilyn Monroe. Most of the acting in this movie is incredibly crappy, especially from the young actresses who played Marilyn as a child or teenager. Ashley Judd, bless her soul, is just not believable, as a lost soul or as a sex symbol. This movie was so terrible that I turned it off after less than half an hour. The themes of Marilyn being molested are frankly quite disturbing and I don't see why anyone would want to watch this movie. I have nothing good to say about this movie, aside from the fact that it probably saved the studio a bit of money to make, as it is so cheaply and poorly done.

Anyone who is a fan of Marilyn Monroe and has spent at least a little time learning about her life will probably end up being completely appalled by this movie. I know I was."Norma Jean and Marilyn" portrays Monroe as a completely superficial, selfish lunatic. It was almost as if the screenplay was written by someone that just heard about her mental problems, and never bothered to read a single biography.What was the point of casting different actresses to play Monroe before and after her plastic surgery? In reality, the woman didn't really change that much in appearance. Ashley Judd and Mira Sorvino are so different in the way that they look... The whole thing was just a bad idea.And while I will admit that I was impressed at times by Sorvino's acting chops, the casting of Judd was ridiculous, and overall both of their performances were pretty over-the-top.When this movie ended, I was just flat out mad. Mad because I had wasted two hours of my life watching the stupid thing. And mad because of the unfair portrayal of one of classical Hollywood's most talented stars.Marilyn Monroe was not crazy. She did not have hallucinations. She did not live in her own little world. She had a drug problem. And she had paralyzing insecurity, stemming from a childhood spent in numerous foster homes, where she was molested and abused. Years after her death, it was revealed that she had bipolar disorder, yet this travesty of a biopic stuck to the idea that she was nuts.Spare yourself the annoyance, and do not watch this movie.

For fans of MM this movie has many factual errors-not the least of which was how Marilyn's death was portrayed. It has some moments and is enjoyable on a superficial campy level but not as a biography. Both Ashley Judd and Mira Sorvino are good but Judd comes off slightly better as the younger Norman Jean.One part that really bothered me was a fantasy scene, a symbolic "killing off" or "loss of innocence" as Marilyn and a casting agent are thinking up a screen name for her. Marilyn as a child is staring wistfully at Marilyn as an adult sitting in a car. Suddenly the grown up Marilyn shoves the car into reverse and slams into the little girl with a very loud thud on the soundtrack. The car pulls slowly away, its bumper dripping blood. Then you see a shoe on the road in the middle of a large bloodstain. This scene was mean spirited, gratuitous and completely unnecessary.I think the real Marilyn certainly had and created problems but she was basically a tender hearted often lonely soul who deserved to be portrayed better than this.