....a tossed salad of Monroe's collapses, tantrums, and edicts.
My Week With Marilyn opens with Marilyn Monroe (Michelle Williams)
stepping from a plane into a sea of London flashbulbs. She has come to make a
movie, The Prince and the Showgirl, with Sir Lawrence Olivier (Kenneth
Branagh.) Have you ever in your movie going life imagined a less likely
combination than Sir Lawrence and Marilyn Monroe? Speaking of unlikely pairings,
she arrives with new husband, playwright Arthur Miller and is hustled off to an
English cottage where, remarkably, she is left alone until Olivier assigns young
Colin Clark (Eddie Redmayne) to watch over her while Miller is away.
It's love on
sight for poor Colin but a real break for Marilyn whose new protector would jump
from the Tower of London if asked. The movie is a tossed salad of Monroe's
collapses, tantrums, and edicts - dressed with a vulnerability that seems
irresistible to some. The sporadic fun of the movie comes with the reactions of
the marvelous British actors who pop up along the way.
Their
reactions to Monroe range from idolatry to sarcasm, all delivered in the best
British manner. But one thing is certain: she is the focus in any room, on any
stage. As a true professional, a grumpy, perhaps jealous Sir Lawrence rails that
she is late to the set, unprepared, and ill equipped, but does any of that
matter? Not a bit. It is Dame Sybil Thorndike (a wonderful Judy Dench) who tells
the legendary actor that when Monroe is on screen no one else matters, not even
him, because everyone is looking only at her. That, of course, is the big
question: the why of Marilyn Monroe.
In very short
order we learn that Michelle Williams was right to take the role of this strange
comet that flashed across the Hollywood sky in the '50s looking always for men
who would protect her. Alluring to some, baffling to others, insufferable to
many, Monroe is a tough assignment and Williams succeeds mightily. Then why, you
may wonder, is this movie about Monroe so lifeless? Certainly it is not the
fault of Michelle Williams or the glittering cast that surrounds her. It's the
elusive nature of Monroe herself. We watch the mercurial, emotional,
self-absorbed star who creates chaos with every move and wonder if there is
really anything interesting or compelling about her except her volatility. Not
really, I think.
What's more
fun here is a lovely performance by Eddie Redmayne. His Colin is a young star
struck Brit who through sheer perseverance becomes third assistant director in
charge of caretaking Monroe. She flirts with him and he absorbs it with love.
For a week he becomes her reliable toy in the turmoil. Kenneth Branagh has
little choice but to be an aggrieved Sir Lawrence. Williams dazzles as the
Hollywood sex symbol, but to enliven a movie, Monroe herself needed to be more
than she was. She needed to be a fascinating mystery, and she never was.
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