My Week With Marilyn
Her face may not look like Marilyn Monroe’s, but Michelle Williams channels the iconic actress with hilarious and heartbreaking ease in this poignant drama. Adapted by Adrian Hodges from two books by Colin Clark, who worked as a 3rd assistant director on the film, “The Prince and the Showgirl,” a film Monroe made in London co-starring and directed by Sir Laurence Olivier, “My Week With Marilyn” chronicles Clark’s experiences on the film (his first movie work), and the relationship that, he claims, went on between him and Monroe, who was three weeks into her marriage with playwright Arthur Miller. Whether they were as close as the film shows is debatable no doubt, but we see a vulnerable and moving side of Monroe that has always been hinted at over the years since her passing, and that’s all because of Williams’s exceptional performance.
The film also shows us a great behind-the-scenes story of making movies with two distinct personalities: Monroe, who has an acting coach versed in the new “method” of American cinema; and Olivier, a classically trained theatre actor, and a filmmaking legend who finds working with the blonde bombshell frustrating. As Clark says to Monroe, “Olivier’s an great actor who wants to be a movie star. You’re a movie star who wants to be a great actor.” Profound stuff as we see the battle of wills between an old master (played with great bluster and frustration by Kenneth Branagh) and a new star played out in trying to get the film made. But it’s the bond between Clark (played by Eddie Redmayne in a star-struck performance) and Monroe that makes Simon Curtis’s film, which also has strong work by Judi Dench as actress Sybil Thorndike and Emma Watson as Lucy, a wardrobe girl who is tossed aside by Clark when Ms. Monroe turns on the charm, into a heartfelt story of self-discovery.
