The Mystery of Marilyn Monroe: The Unheard Tapes is a decent documentary that sometimes seems sensationalised and a bit difficult to watch.

| Original Score: 2.5/5 | Aug 19, 2024

A grave-exhuming documentary that lacks truth and technique.

| Jul 19, 2022

“Unheard”? Well, almost all the interviews here already turned up in the book, but this is technically true, unless someone read it to you aloud.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Jun 10, 2022

A podcast would have been, perhaps, a more consistent idea. [Full review in Spanish]

| Original Score: 40/100 | May 27, 2022

Granted, it was exciting to see some beautiful clips of Marilyn Monroe in all her glory. But listening to tapes of people who knew her speaking on phones or other recording devices did not work out well.

| May 11, 2022

The end game of this documentary is not to pay homage but to reveal all those implicated directly or indirectly with her [Marilyn Monroe’s] death. [Full review in Spanish]

| Original Score: 6/10 | May 11, 2022

Totally empty. A bunch of runaround and buildup for nothing.

| May 10, 2022

In terms of the craft, Emma Cooper does an amazing job... Take it with a grain of salt, but certainly appreciate how well it's made.

| May 10, 2022

In fact, it’s a very good film.

| May 7, 2022

The film is only a warm-over of well known facts and theories, with the “unheard calls” not really offering much new. But, setting the audio to imagined 8mm film clips of the interviewees talking, is at least a neat stylistic trick.

| May 4, 2022

Cooper’s documentary leans in hard on stories that have been repeated to death, and it does so in an icky, sinister manner that leaves a foul aftertaste.

| Original Score: 1/5 | May 4, 2022

As an interviewee in this documentary notes, Marilyn Monroe has always elicited a combination of fascination and empathy among both men and women, and this film proves that point again.

| Original Score: 3/5 | May 3, 2022

Will only rehash things any Monroe fan already knows.

| Original Score: C | Apr 30, 2022

Tawdry and shallow.

| Apr 29, 2022

When one of [the] 1982 interviewees politely explains that he doesn't want to talk about Monroe's 1962 death 20 whole years after the event, the thought arises that 60 years later, maybe it's three times as unseemly to rake it all up again.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Apr 29, 2022

Even with its many flaws, "MMMUT" proves to be a decent primer for anyone not already familiar with her fascinating life story. That she's still a relevant cultural icon 60 years after her death speaks volumes to her allure, mystique, and staying power.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Apr 29, 2022

This work is a sloppy scrapbook that may feature some lovely images but in the end doesn't come close to telling a complete, respectful life story.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Apr 28, 2022

I came away from The Mystery of Marilyn feeling not just incredibly sad but also a little dirty. Maybe our collective fascination with her makes us all a little complicit. Maybe I’d just rather not be reminded.

| Apr 28, 2022

If you call a movie “The Mystery of Marilyn Monroe: The Unheard Tapes,” your job is to provide at least something worth listening to.

| Apr 27, 2022

As a big-boom expose, The Mystery of Marilyn Monroe: The Unheard Tapes whiffs. But as a Monroe biography that lands on a more complete and detailed conclusion, it works.

| Apr 27, 2022