My Week With Marilyn

Movie: My Week With Marilyn

Genre: drama

Synopsis: Based on the memoirs of Colin Clark, this movie is set in 1956 London.  Colin Clark (Eddie Redmayne) is working as a 3rd directory (aka a gofer) on a movie starring Sir Laurence Olivier (Kenneth Branagh) and Marilyn Monroe (Michelle Williams).  Marilyn is an emotional wreck and latches onto Colin as someone she can trust.  The movie details how he became her companion (and more?) during the filming of the movie.  We see just how emotionally fragile Marilyn was and how incredibly insecure she was.  A large part of the film also dealt with the conflict between Laurence Olivier and Marilyn.  He was forever being frustrated by her behavior on the set – constantly being late, forgetting her lines, and consulting Paula Strasberg for her motivation – Marilyn was a devotee of the Lee Starsberg school of method acting.  Laurence Olivia considered all of this to be incredibly unprofessional behavior.

My two cents: A much better movie than I expected.  Michelle Williams did a fabulous job of portraying her – she can really be stunningly beautiful.  She seemed to be effortlessly switch back and forth between the screen idol Marilyn Monroe and the insecure fragile Norma Jean.  Judi Dench was delightful as a famous elderly actress (not much of a stretch).  Emma Watson had a small role.  It was nice to see her without a magic wand – I just wish her role had been bigger.  It was fascinating to see what an emotional wreck Marilyn Monroe was.  She was the most famous woman in the world, but as insecure as a 14-year-old. 

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