Sete Dias com Marilyn

"My Week with Marilyn" is entertaining and sufficiently well done to interest anyone who remembers her story. But those who have some exposure to the literature she has generated should be impressed by the way the film manages to represent so many of the very different views there are about her. Was she a smart, predatory woman in control of her persona and milking it for all she could get? The sad addicted victim of her handlers? An ordinary woman looking for love and happiness derailed by her own star quality? The movie represents all of these views and refuses to settle the question. The writer and director are to be congratulated for resisting the temptation to come down on a particular view.

I attended an advance screening of "My Week With Marilyn," and much to my surprise, was absolutely blown away. I was initially very reluctant to accept Michelle Williams as Marilyn, one of the most beautiful and glamorous women of all time, but she was extraordinary - luminous, even. She pulled off the role seamlessly, and turned Ms. Monroe into a layered, complex character, rather than the sex-kitten caricature we are all so used to seeing. Michelle managed to show us the real Marilyn - the woman who so desperately wanted to be loved, to be accepted, to be good at her job. The vulnerability, the mannerisms, the voice - all were pitch perfect. I have no doubt there will be yet another Oscar nomination in Michelle Williams' near-future.

I was also very impressed by Eddie Redmayne, who's character was arguably the heart of the film. He was excellent as the star-struck yet sensitive Colin Clark, who helped Marilyn through her very difficult time on the set of "The Prince and the Showgirl." This was definitely a star-making turn for Eddie - I expect we'll be seeing much more of him.

The movie is similar in tone to "The King's Speech," and was helped by a beautiful score and wonderful costumes. Director Simon Curtis, who devoted eight years of his life to this project, did a wonderful job capturing the essence of 1950's England. The wardrobe department deserves a nomination, as do the writers. Kenneth Branagh was superb as Laurence Olivier, as was the great Judi Dench as Dame Sybil.

All in all, one of the best films I've seen this year, and definitely the best (not to mention most authentic) portrayal of Marilyn ever to hit the silver screen. I couldn't have been more impressed.

This movie would have been better if they had made it about a fictional actress based on Monroe instead of about Monroe herself.

The Goddess, filmed during Monroe's lifetime (around the time this movie is set, in fact) couldn't have used her name, and it's much the better for that constraint. The Goddess doesn't constantly force us to compare Kim Stanley's fantastic performance with the real Marilyn Monroe, because it doesn't constantly CALL her Marilyn Monroe. My Week with Marilyn doesn't give us that freedom, the freedom to appreciate Michelle Williams's performance on its own merits rather than as an impersonation of a much more charismatic and distinctive star than she is herself.

Viewers more familiar with Williams than with Monroe can rave about this performance, because they're not comparing it to anything. To them, Monroe is just a dizzy blonde standing over a subway grate with her skirt billowing up around her, and Williams plays THAT role as well as anyone else could. But she can't for one second deceive anybody who has experienced Monroe (seeing her is only part of the delight) in more than one scene from one movie.

Half of Monroe's power as a performer is in her face, one of the most beautiful and naturally expressive faces God ever made, and that's why NO actress can EVER successfully play her. No one else has that face.

Using a fictitious name would also have relieved them of having to portray the insufferably shallow and narcissistic Laurence Olivier, the most overrated actor who ever lived. I realize that they based this movie on Colin Clark's highly dubious and self-aggrandizing "memoirs" of his brief contact with Monroe, and therefore had some justification for their choices, but that was a mistake.

One of many mistakes. Worst: the stupid screenplay, which treated Clark's adolescent fantasy as truth and made it even more ludicrous than it already was. Second: the hackneyed direction that makes a story about interesting and real people seem as false as a soap opera. Third: the miscasting of every role in the movie.

Although the most egregiously miscast are Dougray Scott as Arthur Miller, Dominic Cooper as Milton Greene, and plodding Julia Ormond as ethereal Vivien Leigh, NONE of the actors convincingly portray the real persons they are supposed to be. Even Judi Dench is maudlin and icky as the decidedly UN-maudlin and UN-icky Sybil Torndike. I suppose Branagh is sufficiently pretentious and boring as Olivier, but the movie would have been better without that character.

The one good thing about this movie is that it calls attention to Marilyn Monroe. If it had motivated even one person who'd never done so to watch her movies, it would have been worthwhile.

Remember "The Prince And The Showgirl"? I saw it for the first time only a few years ago, after the death of all the protagonists. The miracle, and it is indeed a miracle, Marilyn felt so alive, so contemporary. In "My Week With Marilyn" Michelle Williams is full of light, the real light, the internal one, while everyone else is deadly opaque. The film feels like a very low budget TV movie and not even the grand manors and colleges manage to give it the production value, the story deserved. But Michelle Williams is truly enchanting. Not that she is a dead ringer for the real Marilyn. So much more demure, smaller breasts, smaller behind, only her strange kind of melancholia seems to match the original one and some of that magic essence appears to be in place. Eddie Redmayne, the narrator, whose POV drives the story is rather a cool fish. His grasp is so limp and small that I was kept longing for more. Kenneth Brannagh is very funny and Judi Dench, terrific, but Julia Ormond as Vivien Leigh is just so wrong one wants to fast-forward, unfortunately, that's impossible right now. But, let's go back to Michelle Williams, the one reason to see this film and in itself she's reason enough.

I liked this movie, it was a non-judgemental re-telling of a slice of history. I thought the performances were all very good by the leading characters. I have no idea what the real Marilyn was like and I don't think many people do, but Michelle Williams character is a more than plausible interpretation, vulnerable at times, manipulative at others, who really knows where the reality lies, but there was something for everyone's interpretation. The movie did a good job of depicting that moment in time and transporting the audience there for a couple of hours. I guess it is every man's fantasy to have this opportunity, so the story is a satisfying one for any man who has ever wondered what the real Marilyn may have been like.