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MARILYN  MICHELLE WILLIAMS ...transforms herself into Marilyn Monroe |
How an incandescent star performance made a film
By JOANNE ENGELHARDT
of TheColumnists.com
Marilyn.
Ah, wouldn’t it be great if we were so famous that we only
needed to use one name? Even better, how great would it be if
everyone knew exactly where they were when you died? (Actually
that wouldn’t be so great because you would be, well, dead.)
Just about anyone over 50 remembers where they were and what
they were doing when President Kennedy was shot in 1963. A lot
of people know exactly where they were when Elvis died (although
not me). And it’s a good bet that most of the world knew
what they were doing when they heard about 9/11.
I still remember exactly where I was (in an apartment complex
in Santa Clara, CA) and what I was doing (swimming in the pool)
on Aug. 5, 1962 when my then-husband walked out on the balcony
and said, “Marilyn is dead.”
That was it. Just three words.
And then there was sadness--not unlike (but far more widespread)
than the recent wave of grief for Whitney, another one-name celebrity.
I wasn’t a gee-whiz fan of Marilyn’s by any means,
and I didn’t even see many of her movies (some of which
were real dogs). But like many others, I was struck by her guilelessness,
her beauty and, sadly, by her astounding inability to get things
right even when she had the world eating out of her hand.
So it was with some trepidation that I went to see “My Week
with Marilyn.” I had seen previews of it several times and
thought it looked pretty dreadful, especially because I thought
that Michelle Williams didn’t look or act very much like
Marilyn.
Wrong, wrong and wrong.
The first thing you must do when seeing this movie is believe
that it actually happened. Colin Clark, who wrote the book the
film is based upon, says it did. I’m sure at least some
of it did happen, but with a lot of embellishment and imagination
on the part of the impressionable 23-year-old Colin, who got
a chance to be a ‘go-fer’ on the set of “The Prince
and the Showgirl” and ended up becoming Marilyn’s friend
and sometimes-protector. He even went skinny dipping with her
and shared a rather chaste kiss while traipsing around the English
countryside with her!
From my point of view, “My Weekend with Marilyn” is
a good movie, not a great movie. It has an unusual and frequently
engrossing storyline. It feeds into the frenzy of people wanting
to know what the “real” Marilyn was like -- but you
won’t know any more about her than you do now after seeing
the film. As one movie critic wrote in his review, “Marilyn
was as self-fabricated as Mae West, and to play her is to act
like an act.”
The film is not without its charms, however. For one, it has
a couple of excellent performances by the young British actor
Eddie Redmayne as Colin and the indomitable Judi Dench as Dame
Sybil Thorndike. It’s probably not a coincidence that these
two characters are also the only two who stood up for the frequently
maddening and mystifying Ms. Monroe.
But the singular most notable reason to see this film is Michelle
Williams. As she has done in other screen roles, Ms. Williams
is able to bring a sort of wounded vulnerability to the role.
In “Brokeback Mountain” she was heartbreaking as the
betrayed wife and she seemed to actually be living the part of
the young mother in a disintegrating marriage in “Blue Valentine.”
Both earned her Academy Award nominations and, of course, she
is nominated again this year for her spellbinding take on Marilyn
being Marilyn.
When the movie opens, Marilyn should be feeling at the top of
her game. In 1956 she married the renowned playwright Arthur
Miller and a few weeks later flew to England to film “The
Prince and the Showgirl” with Sir Laurence Oliver, arguably
the most respected actor in the world.
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and MARILYN MONROE in a scene from "The Prince and the Showgirl." |
It’s likely she was convinced that this would prove there was far more to her than the popular, but dumb-blonde image she actually loathed.
I have to admit that I am very much in the minority about Kenneth Branagh’s take on Olivier. Nearly every film review I’ve read credits him with a brilliant, nuanced performance. I found him a yawn. He seemed far too self-absorbed with appalling affectations to ever have been able to have much of an emotional impression on theater--and moviegoers--the way he had done for so many years. Yes, he was on the descent when “Showgirl” was made, but still…I just expected so much more inner emotion from him. That said, I’ve always been a huge Branagh fan, and he IS up for the Best Supporting Actor award, so perhaps I should say “mea culpa” and let it go at that.
But Ms. Williams is so riveting, so genuine, so authentically inauthentic as Marilyn that I unequivocally recommend this film. When she’s onscreen, you’ll notice very little else. She glows, she lights up the room, she exudes sensuality without even trying. She also nails the insecurity, the vulnerability, the internally tormented woman that was Marilyn. It is a performance to be savored.
And, if it weren’t for the remarkable ability of that other nominated actress, Meryl Streep, who also inhabits and ‘becomes’ another person on screen, I’d say Michelle Williams would be a shoo-in to win the best actress award. Ms. Streep has been nominated an astounding 17 times (and won twice), so the odds makers say she’s the favorite to win for her portrayal of Margaret Thatcher in “Iron Lady.”
Personally, I’m betting on the young filly.
©2011 by Joanne Engelhardt. The Joanne caricature is ©2010 by Jim Hummel. This column first posted Feb. 20, 2012.
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