My Week with Marilyn

Whereas Colin matures over the course of the film thanks to a number of more experienced women, the film itself unfortunately missed out on this maturation process. After showing a few signs of maturity, the film ultimately returns to its initial superficiality. Furthermore, the coming-of-age storyline with the dull narrator does not obscure the fact that Colin is here only so that we can observe someone more famous through his eyes. However, this does not excuse the prevailing naïveté of that point of view. ___ The filmmakers did not go further than making an attempt to enchant only with a shiny surface. They would like to show Marilyn as a fragile and vulnerable being, but they don’t want to abandon the myth of the self-confident star. The effort to have both elements leads to failure on two fronts. The narrator admits to taking the actress’s side, which corresponds to the chosen perspective. Marilyn (like women in general) is viewed with greater understanding than the narcissistic Olivier. In presenting an idealised image, however, the film does not go far enough in humanising her, just as it refuses to be fully enchanted by classic Hollywood (like The Artist). Both of these aspects are hindered by moments of ironic self-reflection and the deliberate depiction of the star as people want to see and love her (or rather moments of double self-reflection, when Marilyn is despondent over her ugly face, which doesn’t belong to her, but to Michelle Williams). The simple enchantment and pure joy of being at the side of the star do not work because of the realistic moments of awakening, whose incorporation into the plot is inconsistent and more or less random. ___ Though probably unintentionally, the romantic storyline also brings the film closer to the remotely suspected truth. From the actress’s adherence to the “seduce and discard” method and the week mentioned in the title, it is apparent that Marilyn and Colin’s relationship will go nowhere. This is probably how a similar affair would have turned out in reality, but their moments together lack the necessary sense of detachment and are played and directed too seriously, though we – unlike the film’s creators – feel that it doesn’t make any sense to focus on them. ___ Michelle Williams deals with an issue similar to that facing the director, namely how to depict Marilyn. Though she may have got to know her more famous colleague from the other side (thanks to statements of relatives and loved ones), she has to use the same typical gestures in scenes of both intimate moments and public appearances in order for us to believe her performance. She has to be the Marilyn as we know her best, i.e. not the real Marilyn. Not to mention that in the space of one week, it’s not possible to do more than outline a rough sketch. At the same time, the believability of Williams’s performance is aided by the fact that, away from the cameras, she doesn’t try to evoke the eroticism that surrounded the real Marilyn at every step. Thanks to the suppression of that sensuality, she can focus more on the actress’s tattered psyche and thus do a better job than Marilyn herself at portraying who Marilyn actually was. Unfortunately, the screenwriter doesn’t leave enough space for a more detailed depiction of authentic situations. ___ While Williams strives for a perceptive interpretation of her character, Branagh’s caricature of Olivier merely diverts My Week with Marilyn from its mostly serious direction. There is not a noticeable resemblance between Olivier and Branagh; at best, their similarity can be seen in their shared love of Shakespeare (which was probably the reason that Branagh got the role). The film’s male characters are generally treated with likable indifference. After all, it’s about Marilyn, so why bother with what led Olivier, who stuck to the script as written, to cast an obstinate method actress, or why be concerned with the fact that Colin only gets a job instead of the girl and money thus wins out over love (only an idealist could assert that instead of love for a living person, only the more enduring love of cinema remains for him). ___ This contradictory film about a contradictory personality would have something to it if that contradictory nature weren’t merely a side-effect of a futile attempt at something like simple complexity. 60% (15/02/2012) (less) (more)