My Week With Marilyn

(M) Roadshow DVD/BD

My Week with Marilyn is the true story of a young man whose persistence and enthusiasm landed him a lowly position on the set of Laurence Olivier’s film The Prince and the Showgirl (1957).

Dreamer Colin Clarke (Redmayne) finds himself caught up in an unlikely, short-lived affair with the film’s star, Marilyn Monroe (Michelle Williams).

At 30, Marilyn is kept on a steady diet of pills by her controlling management, newly-married to her third husband (playwright Arthur Miller), painfully insecure, desperately wishing to be taken seriously and as stubborn as her patronising co-star and director Laurence Olivier (Kenneth Branagh).

Michelle Williams is simply glorious as Marilyn. She sings, dances, breaks your heart and fills it with joy and wonder simultaneously. She captures her vulnerable side and what makes the performance most wonderful is its subtlety: one little look conveys so much.

My Week with Marilyn is but a glimpse of the real Marilyn’s multi-faceted self but it is a fascinating portrayal nonetheless.

It works because we see Marilyn the way Colin saw her: briefly, intimately, and, most importantly, lovingly.

Jasmine Edwards