Sunday, December 4, 2011

My Week with Marilyn (2011)

My Week with Marilyn (2011) is a British drama film directed by Simon Curis starring Michelle Williams, Kenneth Branagh, Eddie Redmayne, Julie Dench, and Emma Watson. The film is based on two books by Colin Clark which tells of his first job as an assistant director on the film The Prince and the Showgirl (1957) starring Marilyn Monroe and his alleged love affair with the most famous actress in world.

Newcomer actor and model Eddie Redmayne plays a young Colin Clark who pursues his dreams of working in the film business by becoming an assistant director to the infamous actor/director Laurence Olivier (Branagh). While on set of Olivier's next film with Monroe (Williams) called The Prince and the Showgirl, Clark naturally falls in love with Monroe's intoxicating allure and spends a relentless week and warily enters the dangerous realm of Marilyn Monroe behind Marilyn Monroe. With caution signs from all directions, Clark insistently indulges in the spiraling persona of Monroe as she reveals an increasingly dependent, unreliable, pill-popping, detached child of the world. I felt conflicted knowing that Williams was playing Monroe but as I was watching Monroe i was consistently reminded that it was Williams as Monroe. Regardless, Williams was able to capture the heartbreaking portrait of the consumed and ethereal Marilyn Monroe down to her signature mole. It will be no surprise if Williams gets an Oscar nom for Best Actress this upcoming Academy Awards. As the audience gets a glimpse of the tragic person behind Monroe, like people say when she is Monroe, it is impossible to look at anyone else in the room. she drugs and intoxicates you throughout the entire film whether she is the one incoherent or sober. Williams delivers again and again, down to the slightest discontent grin or blank gesture capturing the excruciating turmoil behind the most famous actress in the world. B-