Norma Jean Mortenson battles a lonely existence with an absent mother; Norma Jean blossoms into an ambitious woman and reinvents herself; Marilyn tries to control her inner demons and the onslaught of mental illness inherited from her mother.

Marilyn recalls her rocky marriage to Joe DiMaggio, her torturous union with Arthur Miller which failed to produce the child she desperately wanted, her affair with John F. Kennedy, and what would become her final film.