The Mystery of Marilyn Monroe: The Unheard Tapes- Movie Review

The documentary goes through the life and death of Marilyn Monroe via the recorded tapes of people in the actresses’ inner circle. These tapes are recorded by Anthony Summers, the author of the book Goddess (1985). Throughout the film, Summers gave his commentaries and conjectures to guide the audience through the entire story. The bits and pieces of the recording are really interesting, especially when the people in Marilyn’s life describe her and her various stages of life. It allows us, audience to feel like we are getting a first hand experience talking to these people, which in a sense, gives us autonomy to create our own perception of the actresses’ life.

Multiple different recordings are played from multiple different people with very little commentary in between to drive the whole direction of the movie. However, the downside to this format is that the extremely factual way of presentation gives us close to zero feel of a build up or emotional connection with what has been happening. even until the end, when we learnt the emotional stress and mental health issues Marilyn was potentially facing, there was almost no amount of sympathy nor contempt in the storytelling. It ultimately feels blank.