My Week With Marilyn

First of all, the film itself is a lot better than I expected. Perhaps thin and a bit disposable like Me and Orson Welles a few years ago but I found this much more watchable overall and generally more convincing. It is definitely stagey and very old fashioned Hollywood in its construction but as appropriately as the film they're making in this film is very much the same.

Eddie Redmayne and Emma Watson are perfectly serviceable while Judi Dench plays the same lovable and sweet but still honest and wise old broad that she generally plays in her sleep. Julia Ormond was stunning as Vivien Leigh in her insecurities about her relationship with Olivier on the set of the film and in her starpower as she reaches 40, and I wish there were more of her since, frankly, she's barely in it.

The two stars are who you'd pretty much imagine. Now, let's get this out of the way. There were times in the film where Michelle's resemblance to Marilyn was straight up uncanny, but no, overall, she does not look all that much like her. But she didn't look more unlike her than Branagh did as Laurence Olivier in the same film. It didn't matter because at some point in the film I easily bought her as Marilyn, really capturing the full spectrum of enigma that exists in our image of her. Williams has that gift where one glance of her eyes could be of pain, disappointment, shock, overwhelming joy, flattering, etc. at different times. Your eyes go to her every moment she's onscreen, and really, I don't know any other actress who could have pulled off the performance with the same intelligence and emotional pull in spite of there being some who might just be considered more "conventionally" sexier than her (though remember, we're using our present day perception of such a thing which Monroe herself likely would not have fit).

She was excellent playing against Branagh, and it's interesting to note that Williams herself seems more of a method actress (and a very good one at that in addition to her natural beauty and allure that I think is part of the formula for the success of her performances) while Branagh is obviously more of Olivier's school. I don't know about the test screening reactions that suggest that Branagh totally outshines Williams in this; yes, he's given quite easily the very best lines of the entire movie that had me burst out cracking up in a way that I can't quite remember doing in a film in a very long time. Hits those RIGHT out of the park. But in the end it's true that Olivier's character is the actor who wants to be a star while Monroe was the star who wanted to be an actress, and her effortless starpower is what shone in this film.