Director Simon Curtis's My Week with Marilyn is based on the memoirs of Colin Clark, a posh boy who ran away to 'join the circus' as an assistant on the set of The Prince and the Showgirl, starring Laurence Olivier and Marilyn Monroe - a pair described memorably by Clark in My Week ... as "a great actor who wants to be a movie star and a movie star who wants to be a great actor". It is this dichotomy which lies at the heart of this glitteringly insubstantial, but nonetheless sweet take on Clark's writings.
Michelle Williams, long a favourite of mine, takes on the role of the iconic Marilyn - a thankless task for any performer, given the ubiquity of Monroe's legend. However she is brilliant at conveying Monroe's complex vulnerability. Though it's impossible not to see the performance as an impersonation, there are fleeting moments when we are tricked into believing it is the real Monroe we are watching, so finely tuned are Williams' mannerisms. These fleeting moments compensate for what I think is a problem inherent to the whole movie: it's nigh on impossible not to rate the actors involved on their likeness to those they are imitating, rather than the quality of their performances alone. Still, I'm at least glad that WIlliams will be catapulted to wider recognition as a result of this role - it's long overdue. I'm also pleased that she was selected ahead of more obvious choices, such as the ostensibly more Monroe-like Scarlett Johansson, who lacks Williams' subtlety and slightly unworldly grace.
Though Williams gives a performance which is thankfully free of parody, it is actually Kenneth Branagh who I think steals every scene - a problem which was ironically the opposite for his character during the filming of The Prince ... . Branagh's tetchy, diva-like thespian is simply hilarious: he's given all the best lines and as he spits out his frustration with his untrained co-star and her obsession with the Method style of acting, he demonstrates the disconnect between the new and old types of movie making marvellously. Though the love story which Clark claims took place between him and Monroe during the filming is supposed to be the movie's central plotline, for me, Branagh's depiction of Olivier's grudging awe and queenly jealousy of his co-star is far more interesting. It represents the rise of Hollywood and new styles of acting, and the subsequent uneasy relationship between Brits and Americans. Eddie Redmayne acquits himself well as the gauche Clark, but falls victim to my earlier point: the audience is far more interested in seeing stars playing stars, than in a romance which too all intents and purposes may only have taken place in Clark's imagination.
The Prince and the Showgirl was ultimately considered a disappointment as a result of its stars' lack of chemistry. Whilst My Week with Marilyn is less of a let down, it is more of an ephemeral curio than dramatic tour de force. Monroe is too big a subject to be imitated - perhaps by inadvertently reinforcing this, the movie is most successful in honouring its subject.
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