Later #62 a movie: 'My Week with Marilyn'

Saw the movie ‘My Week with Marilyn.’ The story follows one week in 1956 during the making of the British movie The Prince and the Showgirl, starring Monroe, played by Michelle Williams, and Sir Laurence Olivier played by Kenneth Branagh. 'My Week with Marilyn' is about the relationship formed between the third assistant director and complete film industry unknown, Colin Clark, with Monroe at the height of her powers. Michelle Williams lights up the screen enchanting everyone around her and perfectly projecting that mega-star power – when Monroe was able to be present, that is.

We also get to see a darker side of Monroe’s life, a woman who knew sadness intimately, but neither her father nor enduring love. Monroe found drama just getting out of bed and onto a film set, in part due to her wandering, dreamy mind, but just as much due to drug-induced mood controlling perpetrated by Monroe’s minders.

The actors playing the actors in the making of this movie are astounding. You easily forget that it was Branagh playing Olivier or Judi Dench playing Sybil Thorndike and not a reincarnation of the old actors themselves. I enjoyed the way that you tracked the power Monroe gradually exerts over her much more qualified and doubting acting cast, moving Olivier to finally concede that Monroe is a great actor and later catapulting him to a new level of fame thanks to her influence.

The other strength of this production is the precise period styling, so authentic when the lads from Eton College rush out in top hats to greet Monroe visiting with one of their alumnus, Colin Clark; the wondrous garden scenes full of lush colour and soft English country dappled light; and the library at Windsor Castle where you could easily believe you were smelling the musty old books and da Vinci lithographs filling your screen. Whether telling the whole truth or otherwise, this film captures a very special mood. 8/10

http://myweekwithmarilynmovie.com/

PS. Michelle Williams was a far better pick for an Oscar than Meryl Streep, although Berenice Bejo in The Artist was better than both!