My Week with Marilyn

'My Week With Marilyn' had much going for it, considering the cast pedigree and the subject. It is always hard making biographical dramas of actresses known for their beauty or portraying the actresses themselves, as evidenced by the wildly variable executions of how well they come off or not.

Whether it is a completely truthful account of Marilyn Monroe's life at this chapter of her life or not was never going to cloud my judgement of how to rate and review 'My Week With Marilyn'. What mattered much more was how the film fared on its own two feet, and 'My Week With Marilyn' fares mostly very well and is beguiling stuff. Not one of the greatest biopics ever made (in a list that includes 'Amadeus' and 'The Elephant Man') but generally of the portrayals of actresses known for their classic beauty it's one of the better-faring ones.

By all means, there are flaws. The direction can be rather blandly workmanlike and there is too much of a heavy-footed feel that jars with the lightness of the material itself. The film has a tendency to drag in the more intimate scenes with Monroe and Clark, which does suffer from occasional disjointed-ness, some trite moments and lack of chemistry at times.

Julia Ormond is also badly miscast as Vivien Leigh, it is a very phoned in and indifferent performance that anybody not familiar with the actress herself but is aware of her reputation will question her appeal, she is also somewhat too healthy-looking (but also not beautiful enough) for a woman plagued with physical and mental health problems in her later years. To a lesser extent, Dominic Cooper struck me as too young and doesn't have much to do to really register.

However, 'My Week With Marilyn' looks wonderful. The production and costume design were among the most visually exquisite and evocatively designed of that year, the period is perfectly evoked that it's like you've been transported back in time and are actually there and it's a beautifully shot film (not as incredible of that for 'The Tree of Life' and 'Hugo' but close). The soundtrack brilliantly and beautifully captures the mood of the film, it's sensitively composed without being too low-key and never intrusive or too made for television. It's also evocative of the period.

Not everything in the script works, there are some trite and disjointed parts but they are far outweighed by the very thought-provoking, funny and sincere ones, it's fluff but very charming fluff. The storytelling drags occasionally, but is also very entertaining and heartfelt with the scenes with Monroe and Laurence Olivier being particularly intriguing and well done.

Ormond aside, the acting is very good. Michelle Williams allures and completely captivates as Monroe herself, blending a sultriness, childlike lust and a darker and more destructive nature seamlessly. She matched by Kenneth Branagh's spot-on Olivier, being hilarious, sympathetic and believable in his exasperation, Judi Dench's splendid Dame Sybil and Zoe Wanamaker's gleefully scene-stealing and wonderfully stern turn. Dougray Scott has been criticised by some, personally had little problem with him, and there is much more of a resemblance to him as Arthur Miller than Ormond as Leigh, other than his American accent being overdone.

Eddie Redmayne gives a very sensitive portrayal in a role deliberately not written as interestingly as the rest, as, despite being the film's heart, he is not the film's focus and was never intended to be as meaty as Monroe or Olivier.

On the most part, 'My Week With Marilyn' was very worthwhile and beguiling. Well worth the time, as long as watched as a film on its own two feet and not as a history lesson. 7/10 Bethany Cox

This movie would have been better if they had made it about a fictional actress based on Monroe instead of about Monroe herself.

The Goddess, filmed during Monroe's lifetime (around the time this movie is set, in fact) couldn't have used her name, and it's much the better for that constraint. The Goddess doesn't constantly force us to compare Kim Stanley's fantastic performance with the real Marilyn Monroe, because it doesn't constantly CALL her Marilyn Monroe. My Week with Marilyn doesn't give us that freedom, the freedom to appreciate Michelle Williams's performance on its own merits rather than as an impersonation of a much more charismatic and distinctive star than she is herself.

Viewers more familiar with Williams than with Monroe can rave about this performance, because they're not comparing it to anything. To them, Monroe is just a dizzy blonde standing over a subway grate with her skirt billowing up around her, and Williams plays THAT role as well as anyone else could. But she can't for one second deceive anybody who has experienced Monroe (seeing her is only part of the delight) in more than one scene from one movie.

Half of Monroe's power as a performer is in her face, one of the most beautiful and naturally expressive faces God ever made, and that's why NO actress can EVER successfully play her. No one else has that face.

Using a fictitious name would also have relieved them of having to portray the insufferably shallow and narcissistic Laurence Olivier, the most overrated actor who ever lived. I realize that they based this movie on Colin Clark's highly dubious and self-aggrandizing "memoirs" of his brief contact with Monroe, and therefore had some justification for their choices, but that was a mistake.

One of many mistakes. Worst: the stupid screenplay, which treated Clark's adolescent fantasy as truth and made it even more ludicrous than it already was. Second: the hackneyed direction that makes a story about interesting and real people seem as false as a soap opera. Third: the miscasting of every role in the movie.

Although the most egregiously miscast are Dougray Scott as Arthur Miller, Dominic Cooper as Milton Greene, and plodding Julia Ormond as ethereal Vivien Leigh, NONE of the actors convincingly portray the real persons they are supposed to be. Even Judi Dench is maudlin and icky as the decidedly UN-maudlin and UN-icky Sybil Torndike. I suppose Branagh is sufficiently pretentious and boring as Olivier, but the movie would have been better without that character.

The one good thing about this movie is that it calls attention to Marilyn Monroe. If it had motivated even one person who'd never done so to watch her movies, it would have been worthwhile.

Here's the thing: knowing this is going to be about Marilyn, we expect certain things. Dazzling beauty exuding sex, insecure film star in search of the real person; perhaps some eye-popping excess about the business responsible for fabricating our dreams. And we expect these because Marilyn's story is Hollywood lore at its most pure: a pretty picture masking darkness of all sorts.

So because we already know that Marily was not just a sparkling movie star and because this is all so widely familiar and with its own widely referenced myth and iconography, the only reason to make this into a film is that you have come up with some unique angle that sheds new unexpected light into the thing. A structure that can hold together so many cinematic dreams implicit by having at the center this woman who gave flesh to them.

At least the premise is sound, if not remarkable. A young man has written a book about his short time together with her, and on a movie set. We trust that a lot of that is fictional and doctored, itself not far from a movie script. Ideally, our film has the option of conflating personal recollection, diary, rehearsal, film being made, into our film about the fabrication of myths and an actress looking to understand the real person behind the role she's given to play.

The first half holds. A breezy, sparkling, leisurely stroll around a movie set, as we like to imagine must have been everyday life around movie stars. We bask in the radiance of making movies and play-acting. What better life?

In the second half however we expect to know the other side of the idealized image. Sex as no longer delicious eye-candy but baring the soul naked.

What do we get instead? That same stereotyped image attached to a score of movie clichés: tabloid proclamations, banality, hackneyed emotion diffused into TV soap. We know that Marilyn and this world was more complex than this. Gentlemen preferred the blonde for a reason and the film does not even begin to understand why.

"My Week with Marilyn" is entertaining and sufficiently well done to interest anyone who remembers her story. But those who have some exposure to the literature she has generated should be impressed by the way the film manages to represent so many of the very different views there are about her. Was she a smart, predatory woman in control of her persona and milking it for all she could get? The sad addicted victim of her handlers? An ordinary woman looking for love and happiness derailed by her own star quality? The movie represents all of these views and refuses to settle the question. The writer and director are to be congratulated for resisting the temptation to come down on a particular view.

MY WEEK WITH MARILYN – CATCH IT ( B+ ) A young Colin Clark remembers the time he has spend with Marilyn Monroe during the filming of "The Prince and the Showgirl". The movie is told through the eyes of Colin Clark and how he sees Marilyn and her estrange relationship with the director/actor Laurence Olivier. As the movie is only about some of days Colin Clark spends with Marilyn, we don't get to see the whole drama inside her life but I must commend Michelle Williams for her stellar portrayal of Marilyn because it's her performance that takes you deep into the mind of Marilyn rather than the script itself. Michelle Williams's hardcore study on her character shows in the movie and she deserved her Oscar nod. Eddie Redmayne is impressive as always but over the years I've noticed that Eddie is always good but never really leaves a strong impact. I've seen him several movies so far but he wasn't that memorable in them. Kenneth Branagh is simply superb. Julia Ormond and Dominic Cooper are alright in their parts. Emma Watson did a decent job out of Hermione, even it was a small role but it was defiantly good to see her spreading outside Harry Potter franchise. Overall, My Week with Marilyn is a good movie and Michelle Williams's performance is worth watching. Highly Recommended! P.S I would love to see Michelle Williams reprise her role as Marilyn Monroe in Marilyn's autobiography if Hollywood decides to make one.