The two Michelle Williams performances that I have in my mind are from Brokeback Mountain and Blue Valentine. Therefore, my general visual impression of her in my head is the stressed-out mother holding a baby, due to the fact that she gave strong performances in those 2 films. In My Week with Marilyn, I do not see one hint of that. If there are any Michelle Williams-isms, I don’t see them. You don’t doubt that she is Marilyn Monroe in both the onscreen and offscreen versions. She just is Marilyn Monroe.
Last year, a biopic of Bruce Lee named Bruce Lee, My Brother came out, which covered Bruce Lee’s early life in Hong Kong before he moved to the United States. In that particular period of his life, he hadn’t yet become the fully formed martial artist that we know him for. Even with that, it was impossible for the filmmakers from crowbaring a couple of fight scenes into the film. And here’s my point: You can’t make a biopic of Bruce Lee without fighting. And likewise, it’s impossible to make a biopic of Marilyn Monroe without gazing at her or referring to her how seductively beautiful she was.
A lot of people are going to praise Michelle Williams. It is a wonderful performance by it’s own right and I’m not taking anything away from her. But that alone doesn’t warrant a good film. What general audience will overlook is the entire cast of this film that does the gazing. It’s not enough that they made Michelle Williams’ Marilyn Monroe is attractive. It’s the people that run up to her, the men that want her to blow kisses at them, younger women wanting to be her and older women being jealous or afraid she’ll snatch their husbands. The entire cast essentially sells how beautiful Marilyn Monroe is equally and altogether I think that should be praised as well.
Kenneth Branagh gets down Laurence Olivier’s diction and I rather enjoyed Judi Dench and Emma Watson in their small roles. It’s nice to know that Paula Strasberg (Marilyn’s Method Acting coach, played by Zoë Wanamaker) looked like Edna Mode from The Incredibles.
The film’s structure is interesting, it’s a musical comedy masquerading as a biopic drama, but it’s really in the end a musical comedy. People are taking this seriously because it’s about famous people and the fact that it really happened. It doesn’t matter if this really happened or not. The story hops along fast montages and song numbers, rather than developing a pathos. It behaves much more like a musical comedy than a drama, and it should judged as such. It’s essentially a coming-out-age story about a boy’s first love. It’s all good fun, but very competent good fun.
I have a female friend who once told me that I should never date girls that quote Marilyn Monroe on their Facebook profile. (“I’m selfish, impatient and a little insecure. I make mistakes, I am out of control and at times hard to handle. But if you can’t handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don’t deserve me at my best.” ) She said it frees them up to act however they want to in any given moment. I didn’t really think about it before till I watched this film. I totally get it now.
Excuse me, while I go delete some people.
hk auteur 