by Brian Kesler
'My Week with Marilyn' has a major problem. It isn't a movie. There is not a single full length sequence or scene in the supposed screenplay. It is a series of vignettes, without range or serious questions about who Marilyn Monroe was, how she lived, or her effect on American pop culture and the effect of America's fascination on her. Each vignette is just so pretty. It is a series of pretty little vignettes. Even a vignette in which Marilyn is asking for more pills doesn't seem like a serious inquisition of Hollywood's dark undercurrent. It's more like, "Awww ... sad ...." kind of stuff.
There are exactly two (2) saving graces to the film: Michelle Williams, whose frightfully spot-on performance of Marilyn Monroe makes one forget they aren't watching the real thing; and Judi Dench, who is delightful as always. Kenneth Branagh fails to humanize that cartoon-like characterization of Sir Olivier, and Julia Ormond has equal difficulty personifying the legendary Vivian Leigh. Eddie Redmayne does well enough as Colin Clark, a gofer who does the spending of the week with the blonde bombshell, but his part is horrifically under written. He just stands there. Well, in the presence of Marilyn Monroe, what else could you do?
I guess I should have told you the plot before I started to ramble. By now you've guessed that the movie involves famous movie stars Marilyn Monroe, Sir Laurence Olivier, and his wife Vivian Leigh. By process of elimination, we can deduce that the film focuses on the making of 'The Prince and the Showgirl,' since it was the only film Monroe and Olivier ever made together. As legend tells us, they despised one another, he because she was that "new" kind of actor. The actor who focused on the method that became so popular in the 50s and 60s. The Marlon Brando, Montgomery Clift, James Dean, Natalie Wood, Elizabeth Taylor era of actors. It was no longer apt to let the character grow organically through dialogue, but to find the character, embody the character, be the character. Monroe was always late because she was searching for the character with her acting coach in the dressing room. To Olivier, who was in the tradition of actors from the '30s and '40s, this was a waste of time and money. An actor's job was to speak the lines, and as long as they did so well, the character would be seen. This was the center of the disputation between them, and because Vivian Leigh, now middle-aged, was naturally suspicious of her husband working all day with a sex icon like Monroe.
This all sounds like terrific drama, but it is deduced to television melodrama. Branagh's performance is so over-the-top, and he's given the most clunky dialogue, which is unsuitable for a man of Olivier's stature. Judi Dench has some interesting moments, but is given very limited screen time. The plot is told through the eyes of gofer Colin Clark and based on his memoirs. It's not an interesting way to bring us into the life of Marilyn Monroe. Clark has the limitation of being a voyeur, who doesn't see much of Monroe's personal life, but imagines her as a spontaneous, sexual, lost kitten based on the behavior he sees from her. But we already know that about Monroe. What this movie doesn't do is go into the details of her marriage with the great playwright, Arthur Miller. It doesn't suggest at all that she and Olivier may have had an affair, or how it must have felt to be the most adored person on the face of the earth when all you wanted to be was normal. It doesn't spend time with Marilyn alone. She is always seen through the eyes of Colin, again, a voyeur's eyes. That doesn't help create an intimate and honest portrait of this human being. This movie just highlights the idea we have of Marilyn Monroe. We imagine this is how she must have been. But, it isn't daring, it isn't compelling, and it isn't intellectually stimulating.
A pointless side plot involving a wardrobe girl (played by Emma Watson with a disgusting, embarrassing wig) wanting to go steady with Colin only lowers the film's credibility.
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