Movie One Hundred Thirty
In My Week With Marilyn young assistant on the set of a film starring Marilyn Monroe befriends her and provides each of them an escape from their own life.
Based on the true story by Colin Clark, My Week With Marilyn is about Colin’s (played by Eddie Redmayne) foray into film by getting a position with Sir Lawrence Olivier’s (Kenneth Branagh) production company for the filming of The Prince and Showgirl. There he meets Marilyn herself (Michelle Williams) and the two become close friends / lovers? both on and off set.
There isn’t much to My Week With Marilyn from a plot perspective, the main conflict of the film is that Marilyn shouldn’t have further distractions on set and Colin is a distraction. The film plays up the futile romance portion of their relationship quite a bit, to the point where I had quite a hard time stomaching some of the details. Even though this actually happened, I find the finer points had to either embellished or totally fabricated. Could every single thing have happened? Sure, like they say, truth is stranger than fiction, but for the sake of judging only the film, I smell BS.
Some interesting things do come out about Marilyn’s acting ability and her work ethic, as well as those of Sir Olivier. I found those aspects of the film to be the most enjoyable, actually. Both Williams and Branagh give fantastic performances here but I thought Branagh’s performance as Olivier was actually the more impressive of the two. Overall, I enjoyed watching My Week With Marilyn but was bored by most of it. When it ended I didn’t care about what had happened and it’s such a small slice of time the film dictates that it’s fairly inconsequential. Watch My Week With Marilyn for the performances, not the story.
I give it 3 true to life Marilyn Monroe comparisons out of 5.
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I agree with this post in its entirety.
I had a hard time coming up with things to write about, especially for the plot. There really isn’t much to talk about other than the actors.
I remember it giving me trouble too.
As a Marilyn fan, I found Williams to be the best Marilyn I’ve ever seen. However, I agree, this film wasn’t necessary as far as plot goes and I question how true to life it all is.
I saw it and felt pretty disappointed too. Williams makes a good Marilyn, but I didn’t feel the movie was very engaging, and ultimately really didn’t care much about it. Good review.
I couldn’t say too much about this film on my own terms either. On one hand, it has good performances from the cast but on the other, it’s story doesn’t seem all that believable and doesn’t make you feel anything. It just sort of happens and that’s all really. Good review Andy.
Good to know…I thought about seeing this in the theater last year but my gut told me to save the money. Glad I did. This sounds like a much better DVD rental.
I’m very glad I didn’t see it in theaters
You know what they say about great minds? 😉 hehe
I agree with your review, especially the last paragraph (“Both Williams and Branagh give fantastic performances here but I thought Branagh’s performance as Olivier was actually the more impressive of the two.” ” it’s such a small slice of time the film dictates that it’s fairly inconsequential.”)
We watched this with our humans and we’re bored too. We think they were too.
Bella and DiDi
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