My Week With Marilyn

‘My Week With Marilyn’ is based on the memoirs of a guy called Colin Clark. Clark was a twenty-three year old who made himself so annoying hanging around the offices of Laurence Olivier’s production company that they eventually give him a job, probably just to get rid of him. It turned out to be some job. When Marilyn Monroe (Michelle Williams) comes to England in 1956 to film ‘The Sleeping Prince’ which was to become ‘The Prince And The Showgirl’, Clark (Eddie Redmayne) is hired as the third assistant director, or general dogsbody, for the film.

This film is not particularly meant to be a biopic of Marilyn Monroe but it does give a great insight into the craziness of her world. Monroe was a total nightmare to work with. The film portrays her as not some much a great actor but as a great star. One that was an immense frustration to Olivier (Kenneth Branagh) as she repeatedly messed up her lines and was constantly late arriving on set, that is when she turned up at all.

When she did she was constantly babied by her acting coach Paula Strasberg (Zoe Wanamaker) who spoon fed her most of her lines.

Meanwhile Clark, who had spent most of his time on set drooling after the film’s star, suddenly ends up being the go-between between Monroe and the production team. She takes a bit of a liking to him and he becomes her confidant, sympathising with her troubles while trying to get her to return to the film set. He gets to spend a week with her, taking her on, among other things, a tour of Eton, which somehow ends up with Monroe skinny dipping in front of him in a river.

We’re like in fantasy land for a young lad of that era or I suppose any male of that era. Unlike everyone else Clark can see through her many flaws and see the vulnerable person she really is. Lust can do this for you.

Of course the last thing you need when you're hoping for a tumultuous one night stand with the biggest sex symbol in the world is for Emma Watson to be hanging around on set, working I think in the costume department.

Clark dates Lucy (Watson) and seems to be in with a great chance of finding the back of the net, she is more his level, which is admittedly still some level but then there’s Marilyn... Would he be able to look the lads in the eye down the pub on a Friday night if he didn’t at least give it a go... Marilyn Monroe or Hermione Grainger? Tough call. It begs the question just how a big a star is it acceptable to cheat on a potential girlfriend with... Lucy doesn’t take his pursuit of Monroe well but she’ll get over it. Perhaps.

It's not really a film that really goes anywhere but it’s the acting that makes this film, in what is an excellent cast that also includes Dominic Cooper and the acting institution that is Judi Dench, as is enshrined in law. She plays Sybil Thorndike, who was in the 1950’s appropriately enough was also a Dame and an institution herself.

The main plaudits though go to Michelle Williams, who really throws herself into the role of Marilyn Monroe and does an extraordinary job. You believe she's Monroe. A cert for an Oscar nomination you would think. Also Kenneth Branagh who’s portrayal of Laurence Olivier was also superb. Loved it.

Tamara Drewe

Tamara Drewe was originally a weekly comic strip serial by Posy Simmonds in The Guardian. It is supposedly, loosely based on Thomas Hardy's nineteenth century study of country life, ‘Far from the Madding Crowd’ and ran for 110 episodes from September 2005 until October 2007. This was then released as a graphic novel in Nov 2007.



So take a dash of Thomas Hardy, add in Stephen Frears to direct it and then get Gemma Arterton to wear some really brief cut-off jeans and hey, you have an audience. Hmmm, I didn't expect to like this but at least I can check out Gemma’s rear.



After the death of her mother Tamara Drewe (Gemma Arterton), a young journalist working in London, returns to the Dorset village of her childhood, Ewedown. She intends renovate and sell her late mother's house and cash in on her inheritance.

The village, which is tranquil to the point of being in stupor, well that according to the two fifteen year old girls who inhabit the bus shelter there, Jody (Jessica Barden) and Casey (Charlotte Christie), has become a retreat for authors. A place where they can work on their stories in peace without the fear of anything exciting coming along to distract them. Novelist Nicholas Hardiment (Roger Allam) and wife Beth (Tasmin Greig) accommodate a bunk of these literary folk in their own home and what a desperately shallow and stereotypical lot they all are. Among these is an American called Glen (Bill Camp) who is struggling to get published with anything, let alone his current book on Thomas Hardy (naturally).

So when Tam’s Mini Cooper roars down the country lanes she shakes up everyone’s dull but happy (well apart from the teenagers) little world. She also turns a few heads; the once ugly duckling schoolgirl with a big nose is now a real stunner. Tam’s former boyfriend Andy Cobb (Luke Evans) isn’t impressed though, he’s not impressed with her nose job or her new glammed up image but then he once got his leg over the old version. He has a point. Any girl can buy herself a new nose but presumably that cute rear end is all her own work. To which all eyes are drawn as she climbs over a stile in nothing but a skimpy top and an even skimpier pair of cut-off jeans.



Still, Andy is happy to work on her house for her, whilst Tam starts work on a novel about herself. A touch vain perhaps but she appears to be exorcising ghosts as well. Tam’s father walked out on her and her mother as a child and she says she got the nose job to feel better about herself.



Whilst she’s ‘home’ she also continues her journalist work and heads off to a local music festival to interview one of the members of the band ‘Swipe’. Her interview with their drummer Ben Sargeant (Dominic Cooper) takes place in her kitchen, at first, but quickly moves upstairs to the bedroom.



He moves in along with his dog, which has a liking for chasing cows, and when he proposes marriage she accepts, even though he quickly grows bored with the countryside and longs to return to take Tam back to London with him.

This is bad news for one of the teenage girls. Jody is hopelessly in lust with Ben and will stop at nothing to keep him in Ewedale where it’s easier to fantasise about him. She lets herself into Tam’s house and starts interfering with her emails. The two girls seemingly hate ‘Plastic Fantastic’ as they have christened Tamara but are none the less obsessed with her.



‘Writers are just thieves and liars’ so says Nicholas Hardiment to his literary fan club and he should know. His wife entertains them for him whilst he’s out cheating on her with other women. When Tam’s relationship with Ben implodes, Nicholas, who the film gives the impression that Tam had a thing for when she was a teenager but got knocked back, moves in. He catches her at a low point and they embark on an unlikely affair. She’s obviously a very flawed girl is our Tam. Girl, you spent all that money on your nose just to be another notch on the rock star bedpost and then to shag a serial philander twice your age. Good call. Plastic surgery will get you everywhere...



As I said I didn't expect to like this but after a slow start, where the film seemed to wander around a bit wondering which plot line to follow, it settled down and became pleasantly entertaining. It’s clever in parts, funny in others. It’s not laugh out loud funny, which is fine with me, as I don't like comedies anyway and it’s actually surprisingly perceptive. Well up to the dreadful ending that is, which is one of those all too common neat and tidy ones, that’s ends up tarring the film with a stroke of the Rom Com brush.

Plus, I hate happy endings. At least, Nicolas got was coming to him but the graphic novel also killed off Jody. Dead in her bed clutching a can of computer cleaner apparently. My sort of ending but perhaps the 15 certificate couldn’t stomach that. Which means our underage stalker is there for the finale, as she finally gets close to her hero Ben. Then as she comforts him over the death of his dog, the film plays out with Swipe’s ‘Jailbait Jody’. The dark humour of which is probably lost on a lot of the audience who leave as soon as the credits start to roll.

So plastic surgery will get you everywhere... well, seemingly back where you started with the guy who didn’t mind the old you, the old nose... who basically always accepted you for what you are. Perhaps that’s the moral of the story.