My Week with Marilyn

It's impossible to watch My Week with Marilyn, and not be drawn in by Michelle Williams' performance as Marilyn Monroe at the height of her fame, and just six years away from her death. In the movie, we can already see the warning signs that would later effect her career and private life. While it's true that Williams is not a picture perfect match for Monroe physically (though she's so close, I wasn't complaining), her performance, and how she is able to capture the multiple sides of the actress, both her private and her public image, is nothing short of remarkable. It's one of the great performances of the year, and is sure to earn Michelle Williams a gold trophy or two during the winter award season.

Despite the performance at the center of it all, the movie itself is not entirely about Marilyn Monroe. It is rather the story of Colin Clark, a man who in 1956 earned the chance to work as the third assistant to the director on a troubled film project titled The Prince and the Showgirl, a high profile film at the time that teamed up directing and acting royalty, Laurence Olivier, with the sexy young starlet. The film is not exactly remembered today, but due to Clark's two autobiographical books (which served as the basis of the screenplay) before his death in 2002, the behind the scenes story of the struggle to make the film, and the relationship that Clark managed to build with Monroe during the shooting of the picture have become quite famous. This is an accurate docudrama that, despite dealing with the serious topic of Monroe's early signs of descent into drinking and pill popping, manages to stay fairly light in tone for most of the film, and is highly entertaining. The movie manages to be warm and nostalgic, while not shying away from the darker edges of the story.

We meet Colin Clark (Eddie Redmayne) as a young man obsessed with the movies, and dreaming about leaving his stiff, intellectual family home behind, and chase his goals of making movies. Through sheer persistence (he shows up everyday at the office of the studio head, and waits for any sort of job to open), he winds up getting a low level job on The Prince and the Showgirl, a romantic comedy that's viewed as a sure fire winner, as it stars the renowned Olivier (Kenneth Branagh), and Monroe, who is trying to branch out and be taken seriously as an actress. Almost from the beginning, there are problems, due to Marilyn's personal insecurities off camera with her recent marriage to playwright Arthur Miller (Dougray Scott), and her inconsistent performances on camera, which drive Olivier almost to madness. She is frequently late to the set (or sometimes does not show up at all), and despite emotional support from a fellow actress working on the film named Dame Sybil Thorndike (Judi Dench), and Monroe's personal assistant, Paula Strasberg (Zoe Wanamaker), Monroe still frequently feels lost or unwanted on the set.

Clark comes into the picture when he develops an unexpected relationship with Marilyn. He has always been fascinated by Monroe, and is awed simply to be in her presence. As for her, she senses a kind of compassion from him that she doesn't receive from anyone else on the set, and she begins to ask to see him privately at the home she is staying at while shooting the film. This leads to lengthy "dates", where Colin Clark gives her a chance to see London as a real person, not as a celebrity. As he is drawn into Marilyn's private life, he sees the warning signs of alcohol and pills, but he still holds a deep respect for her. Unfortunately, the time he spends with her puts a damper on the relationship he was building with a young woman who he likes that's working in the wardrobe department for the film (Emma Watson). But he is so drawn in by Marilyn, and the fact that she seems interested in someone as "small" and normal as him, that he does not care, or perhaps does not realize he is hurting someone.

During Clark's time with Marilyn, he gets to see all the different sides of her, and so do we, thanks to Michelle Williams' performance. She perfectly captures the "normal" and frightened Norma Jean who lost her mother when she was very young, and the sexy bombshell that is Marilyn Monroe. There are scenes in My Week with Marilyn that show how she could change from one personality to the other in an instant. One minute, she is a normal, timid woman, enjoying the city sights with Colin. But when the fans discovered who she was, and began surrounding her, she could turn on her sexy screen personality without missing a beat. We see that even though Marilyn Monroe may have been an image she created for the screen, it was still obviously a part of her.

We also get to see the growing relationship between Clark and Marilyn, due to the fact that the movie takes enough time to show the two together, talking, and being alone. Their relationship does not feel forced, and though we know that Marilyn's manager is right when he warns Clark not to get involved with her, as she will only end up breaking his heart, we still sense a genuine respect between the two. This is partly thanks to the screenplay by Adrian Hodges (which stays fairly close to the facts), but mainly to the wonderful screen chemistry between Williams and Redmayne. I have not seen Redmayne in much else, but his performance as Colin Clark is appropriately low key, without being boring or thinly developed. As for the rest of the cast, they don't get as much screen time or development, but they do get to stand out in their own way, especially Branagh as Olivier, who comes across as someone who is torn by his love and desire for Monroe, and his outrage over her sometimes flaky behavior on and off the camera.

My Week with Marilyn has been made with great energy by director Simon Curtis, whose previous jobs were mainly in television. He shows here a talent for staying true to the facts, while not getting mired in the details. This is a bright, entertaining, and informative look at the height and the early stages of the downfall of a classic star. It's certain to be a crowd pleaser to anyone who seeks it out as it slowly expands its theatrical release over the holidays. If anything, the movie deserves to be seen for Michelle Williams' performance alone. Fortunately, the film is good enough to stand on its own, as well.

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