In "My Week with Marilyn,” director Simon Curtis attempts what many before him have tried as well: to capture the “real” Marilyn Monroe, an American icon who remains a fascinatingly elusive phantom some 40 years after her death. Curtis turns in a nuanced film that shows Monroe in a whole new light—not only as the sexy yet innocent, coy yet truthful image she usually represented onscreen, but also as a woman who strived to be a great actress and not just a star.
Michelle Williams stars as Monroe, giving life to a woman who even as she strived to achieve more than just stardom and adulation, was being pulled in a thousand directions--by the Hollywood machinery, the men who loved her, and her own personal demons.
Williams is superb in the role; her moves, voice and facial expressions are uncannily reminiscent of Monroe, as she deftly shows the audience the torture implicit in being recognized everywhere, mobbed by hoards of fans, and the flash bulbs of cameras constantly seeking to capture a bit of the star’s reflection, both literally and figuratively.
“My Week with Marilyn” chronicles the true story on the set of “The Prince and the Showgirl,” a Sir Laurence Olivier (Kenneth Branagh) vehicle which Olivier directed, and co-starred Monroe. The story is told through the eyes of Colin Clark (Eddie Redmayne), a young man working on the set, and is based on Clark’s memoir. Clark’s love of the magic in cinema naturally transfers to Monroe, since she commands it, but also because she is a human supernova that burns so brightly that he—and most everybody else in her path—cannot look away, even if they risk being incinerated by her.
Olivier struggles to get a good performance--or any performance, for that matter-- out of Monroe as she and her new husband, Arthur Miller (Dougray Scott) quarrel after she reads some of his writing and assumes it is about her. Perhaps these scribblings were the early thoughts on Miller’s play, “After the Fall,” which is often cited as a reflection of the writer’s marriage to Monroe. Miller returns to New York, leaving her alone--which is never a good thing. She is late for the set or does not come at all. She starts to rely on Clark because she feels he is her only ally. Olivier, who reportedly wanted to bed Monroe, settles for bullying her on the set instead.
Clark accommodates her need for safety and fantasy as he holds her during a near overdose and skinny-dips with her when she is supposed to be working. The movie does finally get made and Olivier has to eat crow a bit as he watches the rushes, recognizing her brilliance with a satisfied smile. Monroe inevitably breaks Clark’s heart but instead of retreating into the bitterness many of the discarded men around her display, he is able to still love her for the truth she tries to manifest, even if it is only fleetingly.
While nobody may ever truly be able to explain Marilyn Monroe, either as a myth or as a real person, “My Week with Marilyn” offers something extraordinarily close. The performances—especially that of Williams, who was recently nominated for a Golden Globe—pull you in, and allow for a moment that the audience can understand what Colin Clark went through. Getting close is one thing, but getting inside is something else completely.
DIRECTOR: Simon Curtis; SCREENWRITERS: Adrian Hodges (screenplay) Colin Clark (books) PRODUCERS: Bob Weinstein, Harvey Weinstein CAST: Michelle Williams, Eddie Redmayne, Kenneth Branagh, Julia Ormond RUN TIME: 99 minutes MPAA RATING: R
