Director: Simon Curtis
Writers: Adrian Hodges,
Colin Clark (books “My Week with Marilyn” and “The Prince, The Showgirl and
Me”)
Starring: Eddie Redmayne,
Michelle Williams, Kenneth Branagh, Dominic Cooper, Judi Dench, Emma Watson,
Zoë Wanamaker, Philip Jackson, Julia Ormond, Toby Jones, Dougray Scott
I’m a little unsure of what
to say about “My Week with Marilyn”. I enjoyed it. The performances are
excellent. I’m just not sure it really tells us much of anything about the
American icon.
Taken from a couple of
memoirs by the production assistant and future documentary director Colin
Clark, who willed himself onto Laurence Olivier’s production of “The Prince and
the Showgirl”, it depicts Marilyn as an unpredictable and high maintenance
movie star. It also depicts Olivier as a bit of a blowhard, who didn’t like
having his production hijacked by Marilyn’s mood swings. The movie doesn’t
really portray how much pressure is on a director in a big film production. You
really can’t blame the guy for getting a little ticked off.
The story isn’t particularly
revelatory, but the performances are so wonderful that you enjoy getting the
opportunity to be with these superstars for a little while. Kenneth Branagh
does not look particularly like Olivier, but there are some shots here where
the resemblance is uncanny. Michelle Williams brings great weight to the role
of Marilyn. She’s called upon mostly to capture that elusive and destructive
side of the beauty, but she manages Marilyn’s moments of levity and natural
attraction with such ease that it’s clear why this enigma was such a sensation.
I would’ve liked to see more
of Emma Watson’s costume girl. She gets shafted both by Colin and the script.
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