My Week with Marilyn

Director: Simon Curtis Simon Curtis

Overview

Based on the famously missing chapter in Colin Clark's memoir The Prince, the Showgirl and Me, My Week With Marilyn reveals the enchanted week that the then-lowly production assistant spent with the most famous celebrity of the era during the production of the classic 1957 comedy romance The Prince and the Showgirl. The year was 1956. Colin Clark was an ambitious 23-year-old determined to make a name for himself in film. As summer gets underway, Clark manages to land a position as a production assistant on the film The Prince and the Showgirl, starring Marilyn Monroe (Michelle Williams) and Sir Laurence Olivier (Kenneth Branagh). Monroe had just gotten married to playwright Arthur Miller (Dougray Scott), and the newlyweds were on their honeymoon as production got underway. Later, when Miller leaves, young Clark seizes the opportunity to befriend the platinum blonde beauty, and give her a taste of everyday life in England -- far away from the bright lights of Hollywood and the suffocating pressures of fame.

Product Details

Release Date:	03/13/2012
UPC:	0013132469690
Original Release:	2011
Rating:	R
Source:	TWC
Region Code:	1
Presentation:	[Wide Screen]
Sound:	[Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround]
Language:	English
Time:	1:39:00

Special Features

The untold story of an American icon featurette; Feature commentary with Director Simon Curtis

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Eddie Redmayne	Colin Clark
Michelle Williams	Marilyn Monroe
Kenneth Branagh	Sir Laurence Olivier
Dougray Scott	Arthur Miller
Julia Ormond	Vivien Leigh
Judi Dench	Dame Sybil Thorndike
Dominic Cooper	Milton Greene
Emma Watson	Lucy
Toby Jones	Arthur Jacobs
Zoë Wanamaker	Paula Strasberg
Philip Jackson	Roger Smith
Geraldine Somerville	Lady Jane Clark
Derek Jacobi	Sir Owen Morshead
Simon Russell Beale	Cotes-Preedy
Pip Torrens	Sir Kenneth Clark
Michael Kitchen	Hugh Perceval
Miranda Raison	Vanessa
Karl Moffatt	Jack Cardiff
Robert Portal	David Orton
Jim Carter	Barry
Victor McGuire	Andy
Richard Attlee	Reporter #1
Michael Hobbs	Reporter #2
Brooks Livermore	Reporter #3
Rod O'Grady	Reporter #4
Richard Clifford	Richard Wattis
Gerard Horan	Trevor
Alex Lowe	Denys Coop
Georgie Glen	Rosamund Greenwood
Richard Shelton	Waiter
Peter Wight	Lucy's Father
Paul Herzberg	Paul Hardwick
James Clay	Jeremy Spenser
Jem Wall	Spectator
Ben Sando	Schoolboy #1
Josh Morris	Schoolboy #2
David Rintoul	Dr. Connell
Sean Vanderwilt	Male Dancer #1
Adam Perry	Male Dancer #2
Desmond McAleer	Senior Policeman
Conrad Pope	Composer
Lang Lang	Performer

Technical Credits

Adrian Hodges

Simon Curtis	Director,Executive Producer
Adrian Hodges	Screenwriter
Harvey Weinstein	Producer,Executive Producer,Producer
David Parfitt	Producer
Kelly Carmichael	Executive Producer
Christine Langan	Executive Producer,Producer
Ivan Mactaggart	Executive Producer,Producer
Jamie Laurenson	Executive Producer,Producer
Deborah Aquila	Casting
Tricia Wood	Casting
Nina Gold	Casting
Julian Spencer	Stunts
Mark Holt	Special Effects Supervisor
Vickie Howe	Script Supervisor
Richard Dyer	Sound Mixer
Colin Vaines	Producer
David Boulton	Sound Effects
Steve Browell	Sound Effects
James Corless	Sound Effects

Editorial Reviews

Is there any more thankless task for an actor than to play a famous performer from the past? Especially one as clearly defined in the audience's mind as Marilyn Monroe? You not only have to live up to the legend, but dig underneath the surface to find the soul of a person whom the public knew only by her carefully crafted public persona and the pages of the gossip magazines that made a fortune off of her image. Concentrate on looking and sounding the part and you're accused of simple mimicry, but if you ignore that aspect of the job then nobody will take your performance seriously. Michelle Williams, who at 31 can lay claim to being the most-fearless American actress of her generation, wades into this minefield and emerges not only unscathed, but with one of the finest performances of her already outstanding career. Based on a memoir by Colin Clark (played in the movie by Eddie Redmayne), My Week With Marilyn details the filming of The Prince and the Showgirl, a light comedy starring and directed by Laurence Olivier (Kenneth Branagh), who casts Monroe in the part originally played on-stage by his wife Vivien Leigh (Julia Ormond in a small but memorable role). Clark wants to break into the movie business, and with a healthy reserve of pluck -- as well as connections thanks to his well-off father -- he lands a job in Olivier's production company, eventually becoming the third assistant director on the film. When the emotionally stunted Monroe arrives, she comes with an agent, various handlers, and her husband Arthur Miller (an unrecognizable Dougray Scott), as well as her acting coach Paula Strasberg (Zoe Wanamaker). Monroe's commitment to method acting infuriates Olivier -- she's forever late to the set and won't simply "be sexy" like he wants her to be. Soon, the eager-to-please Clark becomes the only person on the production Monroe trusts, and as problems begin to surface in her marriage, he finds it harder to resist the temptation to sleep with the international sex symbol. As a coming-of-age tale set in the world of big-time entertainment, My Week With Marilyn is covering rather familiar ground -- comparisons to Richard Linklater's Me & Orson Welles spring readily to mind -- but its uniformly superb performances set the film apart. Williams communicates both Monroe's gifted acting skills (she's a natural whom Strasberg nurtures through her crippling self-doubt) as well as her emotional instability. And that's not even mentioning her drop-dead sex appeal. Even when the movie drifts into the overly familiar areas of her life, Williams makes the actress immediate and multifaceted; her Monroe isn't a legend, but a sad, lost little girl. Williams has a number of fantastic scenes with Branagh, who masters Olivier's distinctly theatrical speaking patterns. We learn at the end of the movie that, after this experience, he would star in The Entertainer, and it's fun to watch Branagh play Olivier's growing realization that he's aging. He's no longer the young lion of British acting, but slowly becoming an elder statesman who not only can't seduce his leading lady, but can't even act as well as she does. For his part, Redmayne holds his own with what is by nature the least-interesting character in the movie: the good boy who sees the dark side of himself and others, and comes out of it wiser. With a hero so resolutely decent, so able to act with propriety, My Week With Marilyn is practically a love letter to British reserve; it's an elegant, amusing, and heartwarming rejoinder to the axiom that we only regret the things we don't do. But the film is never dull, thanks to the brilliant acting, the screenplay's many pungent one-liners, and the sneaking suspicion that we're actually seeing a legend turned into a flesh-and-blood person. My Week With Marilyn allows us to stop hero-worshiping and start appreciating one of the iconic figures of film history, and that's no small accomplishment.