Review of Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day (2008) by Jennifer S — 29 Jul 2010

In some respects, Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day had its charms. Taking place in England right before WWII, Pettigrew is about a down on her luck governess (Frances McDormand) who takes a job as a "social secretary" to aspiring actress Delysia (Amy Adams...in a very 'Amy Adams' role) and over the course of a day manages to live it up and find love for herself and for Delysia. This means we get a scene at a lingerie show! There's a party! People use terms like "jeepers"! Cole Porter's "Anything Goes" plays charmingly in the background! How can someone not like this movie?

Well, what that irritated cranky pants me is that these characters are so poorly drawn, it's really hard to care about them. Which would be fine, except that the film really, really wants us to care about them. Miss Pettigrew is know as "the governess of last resort" and is fired from numerous jobs--but why? The movie never reveals why she's supposedly such a terrible governess. In fact, from what we do know of her character, Miss Pettigrew seems like she would be a very competent governess. Yet the movie insists, without further explanation, that she is not.

Then take Delysia--a woman with three beaus. She is being pressured by one boyfriend (Michael, the cutest one, played by certified cutie Lee Pace) to give up the others and marry him. But the others promise potential fame and fortune. The movie insists that Michael is the man for Delysia. Why? Because he's marriage-minded? Because he's not rich, and therefore noble, unlike the others? Unfortunately, Michael is only in two scenes and so we really don't know much about him. But we, the audience, are instructed to care about poor Delysia's problem of having three boyfriends and spoonfed what the right choice is, which she eventually will make.

Maybe I'm being too hard on this movie. Maybe, like the above-mentioned "Anything Goes", Miss Pettigrew is more about frothy fun and cool clothes than about plot and character arc. Indeed, that's probably the case, and Miss Pettigrew is probably a fine film for most people. But the lack of any sort of basic character development, the boring acting on the part of McDormand and Pace (Amy Adams was good as the bubbly Delysia, for what it's worth), and the shallow appeals to the emotions of the audience failed to charm me. It wasn't bad, it could have been much better.