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My Week with Marilyn (2011)

Director:
Simon Curtis
COUNTRY
United Kingdom
GENRE
Drama/Romance/
Biographical
NORWEGIAN TITLE
My Week with Marilyn
RUNNING TIME
101 minutes
Producer:
David Parfitt
Harvey Weinstein
Screenwriter (based on accounts by Colin Clark):
Adrian Hodges


Cast includes:

CHARACTER ACTOR/ACTRESS RATING
Marilyn Monroe Michelle Williams ½
Colin Clark Eddie Redmayne ½
Vivien Leigh Julia Ormond
Sir Laurence Olivier Kenneth Branagh
Sir Kenneth Clark Pip Torrens
Lucy Emma Watson
Lady Jane Clark Geraldine Somerville
Hugh Perceval Michael Kitchen
Jack Cardiff Karl Moffatt
Cotes-Preedy Simon Russell Beale
Arthur Jacobs Toby Jones
Arthur Miller Dougray Scott
Milton Greene Dominic Cooper ½
Dame Sybil Thorndike Judi Dench ½
Paula Strasberg Zoë Wanamaker ½
Sir Owen Morshead Derek Jacobi

 

Review

My Week with Marilyn is a superficially interesting account of Ms. Monroe's visit to England to film The Prince and the Showgirl, whereupon the film's director and male star Sir Laurence Olivier tried to make her orderly, and his third assistant, a young man called Colin Clark, shared a short week in her company, falling in love in the process. Monroe is played by Michelle Williams, who captures the doomed starlet's ambivalence and melancholy, but fails to add much depth to her mimicry performance. Clark is played by British newcomer Eddie Redmayne, looking like a young Warren Beatty minus quite a bit of confidence. Between them these two titular leads share some screen-time together towards the end of the film, but it all seems far too insignificant to make the film stand-out either as a tale of a young man left impacted by this acquaintance or as a novel light-shedder on Marilyn Monroe's life or persona. Incidentally, it was Kenneth Branagh's Sir Laurence Olivier which aroused my curiosity the most. My Week with Marilyn is an anecdote worth telling, but hardly worth remembering.

Copyright © 26.3.2012 Fredrik Gunerius Fevang

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