Review of My Week with Marilyn (2011) by Ypomoni — 04 Jul 2013

A coming-of-age film, revolving around Colin Clarke's (Eddie Redmayne) encounter with the iconic Marilyn Monroe (Michelle Williams). Colin decides that it is time to stand on his own two feet and show his wealthy family that he too can be successful, and does so by attempting to go into the film industry, otherwise referred to as going to "join the circus". He lands a job as 3rd assistant director (basically, gofer) to Laurence Olivier (Kennath Branagh) for the film "The prince and the showgirl", starring both Olivier and Monroe.

Monroe is portrayed here as being two sides of the spectrum: on the one hand, she appears to be extremely witty and full of confidence when in interviews. On the other hand, she is also shown to be dim and unprofessional (to put it mildly), not showing up on time, forgetting her lines and constantly needing explanations as to what she is doing. She also appears as very insecure and thus highly dependant on the approval of others, to the point where as long as she gets her emotional fill, she doesn't seem to care (or rather notice) that she might have broken someone else's heart (a pattern that is implied repeats itself with her). Williams gives a good performance of somebody (someone like Monroe, I guess), but lacks the innocent seductiveness that was Marilyn Monroe a very important factor for this film. Probably the most important factor, seeing as it is shown in the film that this is why people put up with her (alleged) shenanigans, or why they would fall in love with her.

Redmayne puts in a solid performance as the wide-eyed, simple-hearted yet ambitious Clarke, however Williams' lack of sex-appeal, as mentioned previously, makes it hard to see why this young, impressionable yet intelligent young man would "fall in love" with what appears as a neurotic, bipolar damsel-in-distress except for maybe her characters on stage, and the fact that she was the most "famous woman in the world".

Branagh's Olivier seemed to me like a caricature, lacking the depth and sharpness needed.

In short, I was let down by the portrayals of two of the most iconic figures in motion picture (a tall order to begin with), which subsequently made the film tedious.