My Week with Marilyn (2011)

  I have a confession to make.  I didn't finish my English essay yesterday.  I'm only halfway done.  I don't think I've ever struggled this hard to put words on paper before.  It's very unpleasant.  Not to mention has thrown off my entire weekend.  I don't have a single thing drafted for Monday's post.  It took me a day and a half to get through an episode of The Voice and I still have one episode left of Dexter season seven.  Y'all, I am stressed.

Not as stressed as Marilyn Monroe, though.  That poor bitch.  This movie is a dramatization of a memoir written by Colin Clarke, who was a young third assistant director on Lawrence Olivier's film with Marilyn called The Prince and the Showgirl.

In the movie, Clarke (Eddie Redmayne) and the rest of the crew are fascinated by the glamorous Monroe (Michelle Williams), but the production begins to suffer due to her personal problems and lack of experience, infuriating director and co-star Olivier (Kenneth Branagh).  The more Olivier screams and harasses, the more withdrawn Monroe gets, until she will only allow Clarke near her.

Michelle Williams does a phenomenal job of playing the delicate-as-tissue-paper Monroe without making her seem pathetic or annoying.  This is a woman on the edge of a nervous breakdown, totally isolated by her fame.  Emma Watson has a good supporting turn here, as well, as the wardrobe girl thrown over by Clarke for the chance to be near Monroe.  She only has a few minutes of screen time but she feels very real in the part.

I've personally never seen what the fuss over Marilyn Monroe was about.  Ok, she was pretty for the time but I've never felt there was anything particularly special about her.  I think I can empathize with this character but only because of Michelle Williams' portrayal.  Still, it's a very good movie and it did make me want to watch The Prince and the Showgirl, so there's that.