Michelle Williams (Blue Valentine, Brokeback Mountain) once again proves she is one of the finest actresses in her generation in Simon Curtis’s endearing drama My Week With Marilyn. Williams shines as Marilyn Monroe. Williams is so good at portraying the perplexing and often misunderstood sex symbol of the 1950s. With her blond hair, red lipstick, recognizable little giggle, and famous wiggle, it is easy to see how boys and men of all ages could fall in love with this woman they knew they would never meet. I can’t think of a better actress who could have played Monroe and the talented Williams.
Based on a true story told by Colin Clark (Eddie Redmayne – Les Miserables, The Danish Girl), My Week With Marilyn is the story of a relationship between Marilyn and himself during one week while she was filming 1957’s The Prince and the Showgirl. This movie united the most sought-after actress of her time with one of the most recognized actors, director Laurence Olivier. At the time, Monroe was married to playwright Arthur Miller. Miller is seen walking hand in hand with Monroe at the start of the movie, but he then leaves to go to Paris and is not heard from again. My Week With Marilyn presents Monroe as a depressed, inconsistent, and self-destructive person hooked on sleeping pills. Much to the chagrin of Olivier, the production of The Prince and the Showgirl is put on hiatus due to Monroe’s unreliability and inconsistent behavior. During this time, Monroe befriends Clark. Before this point, Clark was a nobody who talked his way into a job as the film’s third assistant director. His appointment was to keep tabs on the unreliable Monroe.
Monroe was known to have many psychological issues. Four years after the filming of The Prince and the Showgirl, Monroe was admitted to a Psychiatric Ward. Clark makes some reference to this. We see Clark taking a bottle of sleeping pills out of Marilyn’s hands. We see him spend the night sleeping next to her in her bed. We see the two of them skinny-dipping together. We see him escorting her around and trying to get her to function as a human being rather than as a star in a major motion picture. Monroe questions herself, her purpose, and her desire to act. Clark becomes a sounding board to it all, capturing all of it as he retells his story about his seven days with the then-most recognizable woman in the world.
Kenneth Branagh (Hamlet, Henry V) was nominated for a Best Supporting Actor Academy Award. He was okay. I guess. His performance was way overrated. The actor who should have been nominated for this award is Redmayne. He was so convincing as the young Clark that seeing him as any other character in any other film would cause me to do a double-take. This will especially be true if he plays a character with a mean streak or has some identifiable troubles. The smile rarely leaves his face, no matter what the situation in the movie. I liked that this guy was going through the deep pain of a broken heart but masking it from the outside world as well as the audience from seeing. The most desirable woman in the world and the woman he grew up worshiping had taken a liken to him. And while Marilyn was confused and, most likely, not in complete control of her feelings, she was still the one pursuing Clark. Because of her mental state, we don’t know if she was stringing him along or if she temporarily thought he could be the one to save her. Regardless, Clark experienced and tried not to show the disappointment and heartache he was going through.
Though as good as Redmayne, this movie succeeded because of Williams. It must have been fun for her to play such an icon but simultaneously terrifying. Everyone knew what they were expecting from whichever actress was playing Monroe, but being able to convey this to the audience entirely and believe that who they saw in the film was Monroe rather than Williams had to have been a daunting task. But she stepped up to the challenge and was deserving of her Best Actress Academy Award nomination and her Best Actress Golden Globe win. While the Best Actress Academy Award winner Meryl Streep was fantastic as Margaret Thatcher in The Iron Lady, it was Williams’s turn to win. She gave the best performance of the year.
As a newcomer, director Simon Curtis didn’t get the due he deserved either. Looking at the five nominees in the Academy Awards Best Director category, there was nothing these individuals did that was any better than Curtis. Seriously, how many times does Woody Allen need to be nominated? Does he get nominated now just because he’s Woody Allen? It seems that way. Midnight in Paris was good but could have been better. My Week With Marilyn was a much better movie and seemed (to me anyway) more challenging to direct.
Plot 10/10
Character Development 10/10
Character Chemistry 10/10
Acting 10/10 (out-of-this-world performances by both Williams and Redmayne)
Screenplay 8/10
Directing 8/10
Cinematography 8/10
Sound 8.5/10
Hook and Reel 8.5/10 (I was thoroughly engrossed throughout)
Universal Relevance 9/10 (it seems like Marilyn Monroe is someone who we still can’t get enough of even though she has been dead for 50 years…she captivates)
90%
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