Michelle Williams Stunning in My Week with Marilyn

My Week with Marilyn (2011)

Directed by Simon Curtis

BBC Films, 99 mins. R (language, brief dorsal nudity)

* * * *

My Week with Marilyn is one of those “small” films in which not a lot happens-–the sort that would be overlooked were it not so well acted. Lucky for us the cast is superb.

The film’s narrative is sparse and revolves around Marilyn Monroe’s 1957 visit to England, where she made an inconsequential film, The Prince and the Showgirl that starred and was directed by Sir Laurence Olivier. Ms. Monroe was 31 and at the height of her sex kitten fame. So much so, that she was already coming apart at the seams. Her marriage to Arthur Miller was just three weeks old but crumbling, and Marilyn was wracked with insecurities that she addressed through temper tantrums, anxiety attacks, pills, affairs, and the vain hope that she could become a serious actress. Toss into the maelstrom her constant companion, Monroe’s acting coach, Paula Strasberg, who was equal parts method acting guru and Svengali-like mesmerist, and the set of The Prince and the Showgirl was not a pleasant place to be. Monroe often late or absent from the set, and incompetent when she was there. In one delicious line from My Week with Marilyn, Olivier-–played with world-weary aplomb by Kenneth Branagh–remarked that trying to teach Monroe how to act was “like trying to teach Urdu to a badger.” So how did the film ever get made? If we are to believe the memoir of Colin Clark who served as Olivier’s third assistant director–a glorified gofer–it’s because Ms. Monroe found solace in his friendship and in their brief fling. (For the record, Clark was 24 at the time, and not everyone believes his story of having had an affair with Monroe.)

The movie was adapted from Clark’s short play and it only works as a film because the actors make us believe a dodgy story line and a threadbare plot. Eddie Redmayne is well cast as Clark and plays him with the besotted puppy dog loyalty as one might expect from a young lad asked to be a companion to the world’s most glamorous woman. Branagh incisively dissects the 50-year-old Olivier as a man forced to realize that his womanizing charms are a decade out of date and he’s not going to stave off Father Time, seduce Monroe, or become a Hollywood idol. Zoë Wanamaker is even better as Strasberg, whom she turns into a cross between Machiavelli and the Wicked Witch of the West. One glare from Wanamaker is more effective than a ten-minute rant from a lesser actor. Like most British films, even the minor parts are crisply performed by topnotch actors; look for twinkling cameo star turns from Derek Jacobi as Sir Owen Morshead, Julia Ormond as Vivien Leigh, Judi Dench as Dame Sybil Thorndike, Dominic Cooper as photographer Milton Greene, and Emma Stone as Lucy, the would-be girlfriend that Clark tosses aside for Monroe.

But this film belongs to Michelle Williams who is, simply, the best interpreter of Marilyn Monroe I can recall seeing. Williams doesn’t actually look like Monroe, even with flaming red lipstick, a wig, and a paint-on mole; Williams is more slender, less full-figured, and fresher of face. But you won’t need to check your credibility at the box office; Williams will make you believe she is Marilyn. Most actresses fail as Monroe because they try to channel the public image rather than the inner person. This means they become a photocopy of a photocopy. Williams gets the fact that Marilyn Monroe was a paste-on persona in the same way that Samuel Clemens was Mark Twain or Julius Marx was Groucho. Williams plays to the tension between the coquettish mask and the troubled inner self. We see her wishing, nay aching, to be allowed to be normal, but failing to find any comforting hiding places not illuminated by Marilyn’s glow. She goes from giddy joy to a deer in the headlights when quietly walking a London street only to be mobbed by admirers. In another luminous moment she’s in a schoolyard when the same thing happens. At first she’s frightened, then she turns to Clark and asks, “Shall I be her?” In a flash she turns on the Marilyn act, and the audience laps it up like a cat in front of a saucer of cream. Williams delivers an astonishing performance that should win awards–if enough people actually see the film.

Therein lies a tale. My Week with Marilyn is a bit like the film-within-the-film, The Prince and the Showgirl. The latter got a few good notices and some pans, but was mostly ignored. Monroe next made Some Like it Hot, generally regarded as her most memorable role. In it she gave up the pretense of being a stage actress and played to Monroe stereotypes. In like fashion, Olivier gave up silver screen dreams and returned to the boards for The Entertainer, wherein he made stage history. Will the small My Week with Marilyn win the awards it deserves? Probably not, but somewhere in the future lies an Oscar engraved with the name Michelle Williams.