The EW staff wrote, "The iconic star takes center stage in a revelatory HBO documentary that combines old footage and a slew of interviews with such actors as Viola Davis and Glenn Close.

The new HBO documentary, which premieres Monday at 9 p.m., is an elegant pastiche based on the boxes of Monroe’s own writings that were discovered a few years ago.

Ranging from hastily scribbled jottings to lengthy letters to her acting coach Lee Strasberg, the handwritten notes add a refreshing complexity to a persona that’s been simplified over time into a two-dimensional, if ever-enduring, sex symbol.

Among them: Glenn Close, Ellen Burstyn, Lili Taylor, Uma Thurman, Evan Rachel Wood, Lindsay Lohan and the magnificent Viola Davis.

"[8] The television critic for the Los Angeles Times, Mary McNamara, discussed the "seductive power of theater", writing, "Yet for all the hope pinned on internal illumination, the first thing Love, Marilyn does is remind us how beautiful Monroe really was.

Dennis Harvey, writing for Variety wrote, "And while there’s no question Garbus has recruited first-rate talent to pay homage here, some of the most impressive names prove heavy-handed or simply miscast in attempting to channel the love goddess’s fragile spirit; moreover, having them act against green-screened archival materials has a tacky, pop-up televisual feel ...

But the revelatory quality that attended some of Garbus' prior docus, on topics from Bobby Fischer to modern incarceration, is absent from what ultimately feels like one more unnecessary excavation of perhaps the 20th century’s least resting-in-peace sex symbol.