MY WEEK WITH MARILYN (2012)

Cast

Plot

Lucy Fife Donaldson says: "Based on Colin Clark's book about his alleged relationship with Marilyn Monroe while she was at Pinewood shooting The Prince and The Showgirl, My Week with Marilyn reveals Marilyn's (Michelle Williams) frosty relationship with director and co-star Laurence Olivier (Kenneth Branagh), as well as the neurotic and erratic behaviour of the most famous woman in the world at that time. The film is worth watching for Michelle Williams' performance alone, as she manages to capture the essence of Monroe and her complexities without doing an impersonation; a rare treat in the Biopic genre. Unfortunately her effortlessness makes most of the rest of the cast - a veritable who's who of English character actors - look like they're in a panto, with Branagh the worst offender (he looks like a pantomime dame and sounds like a movie Nazi), while Eddie Redmayne as Colin Clark is not quite strong enough to lead despite the plot's general lightness."