'My Week With Marilyn'

'My Week With Marilyn' (R) (3 STARS)

Written By Adrian Hodges based on the diaries of Colin Clark
Director: Simon Curtis
Starring: Michelle Williams, Eddie Redmayne, Kenneth Branagh, DominicCooper, Julia Ormand, Judi Dench, Dougray Scott, Emma Watson

Marilyn Monroe is an iconic figure and a one of a kind star and only an amazing actress from our time could capture her magic. Michelle Williams is my favorite actress right now, no exceptions. She can take a shallow and light movie and make it soar. Her performance of Marilyn Monroe is dead on perfect, so much so that I thought an earlier Marilyn Monroe performance piece in this movie was a real life clip of Marilyn Monroe. It is actually Williams as Monroe and her performance is pure magic just like Monroe herself. I wish the movie was as equal as her flawless performance.

No one has captured Monroe's life force as much as Williams does here and I predict nobody will equal her in any future Monroe film. We have seen the Marilyn Monroe story before but "My Week With Marilyn" concentrates on a certain period in Monroe's career when she acted with Laurence Olivier in "The Princess and the Showgirl". That movie which came out in 1957 was directed by Olivier and Sir Laurence had a very difficult time with Monroe's lack of professionalism. Her low self esteem and lack of acting skills hindered her performance in the movie. The movie is based on diaries of Colin Clark who was a film assistant. Colin was in charge of comforting and looking after Monroe and he fell in love with her.

The character of Clark is a bore to me and I was not interested in all in him. Broadway actor Eddie Redmayne plays Clark and his performance is good but his character is not memorable. You want to identify with Clark because he gets to be so close to Monroe but I just didn't get him. That is okay because Williams is so great here it doesn't matter. This is her show and her performance trumps everything else in the movie. Kenneth Branagh is also very great here as Olivier and there is good support by Julia Ormand as Vivien Leigh and Judi Dench. I loved the look at the filming of the movie and the way that Monroe always frustrated Olivier but I found the Clark fueled love story boring.

So it is a mixed bag for me here but I will reccomend you see this instead of my first inkling to say wait util DVD. You will not see a better performance, save for a few others, by Michelle Williams this year. She will get award recognition so I really think you should see this at a matinee show. Michelle Williams is incredibly pitch perfect as Monroe and it is a performance you must see. She not only looks like Monroe but she captures her moves, sex appeal and little girl lost personality. I have seen this side of Monroe before in other biographical Monroe pictures so I don't think the movie offers anything new about her. Though I will say as a movie lover I like the behind the scenes look at the making of a movie. I also absolutely love the performance of Michelle Williams which is pure gold.

P.S. Williams is on a major roll here and that is why she is my number one favorite actress right now. Coming on the heels of her amazing performance in one of the best movies of last year "Blue Valentine" she again is incredible in this very light, sometimes frustrating movie.