My Week with Marilyn (2011)
Directed by Simon Curtis
London, 1956. Genius actor and film director Laurence Olivier is about to begin the shooting of his upcoming movie, premiered in 1957 as The Prince and the Showgirl, starring Marilyn Monroe. Young Colin Clark, who dreams on having a career in movie business, manages to get a job on the set as third assistant director.
3 connections found
View:
3 films that influenced My Week with Marilyn
What critics say influenced My Week with Marilyn
After The Prince and the Showgirl Monroe went on to deliver her finest comedic performance in Billy Wilder’s masterpiece Some Like It Hot (1959) and her finest dramatic performance in John Huston’s The Misfits (1961) before dying in 1962 at the age of 36.
Watch Some Like It Hot (the actress's very next movie after The Prince and the Showgirl) and listen for the acid in the back of her voice as she says "I always get the fuzzy end of the lollipop".
Or as an exasperated Billy Wilder said after “Some Like It Hot,” “Marilyn Monroe was never on time, never knew her lines.
After The Prince and the Showgirl Monroe went on to deliver her finest comedic performance in Billy Wilder’s masterpiece Some Like It Hot (1959) and her finest dramatic performance in John Huston’s The Misfits (1961) before dying in 1962 at the age of 36.
Going off the rails in its very first scene, showing its protagonist, Colin Clark (also the author of the memoirs on which the script is based), going to the pictures to see the iconic Marilyn Monroe, My Week with Marilyn's shotgun blast of first impressions includes a toothy, vaguely unpleasant spokesperson with a smile that looks like it hurts, a halfway decent impersonation of the Some Like It Hot legend, and a sense of what 1950s movies looked like that is so disastrously wrong, it adds a dimension of unintentional comedy all its own.
It's been a long time since I first saw Some Like It Hot, and this movie reminded me why audiences all over the world couldn't get enough of her.
The savvy supporting cast, each making impressionable marks, include Judi Dench (2011's " J. Edgar ") as the dignified Dame Sybil Thorndike; Emma Watson (2011's " Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 ") as fetching wardrobe girl Lucy, whom Colin takes a shine to; Zoe Wanamaker (2001's " Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone ") as Marilyn's method acting coach Paula Strasberg, and Julia Ormond (2008's " The Curious Case of Benjamin Button ") as Olivier's wife Vivien Leigh, who has had to stand by and watch her intended part go to the still-youthful, more popular Marilyn Monroe.
Olivier is no fan of the method and annoyed when Marilyn's acting coach Paula Strasberg (Zoë Wanamaker, "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone") overrides his direction.
But Monroe can’t remember her lines and leans heavily on acting coach Paula Strasberg (Zoe Wannamaker, “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone”), who constantly encourages her and smooths Monroe’s ruffled feathers.