The “me” in the “my” in “My Week with Marilyn” is Colin Clark (played by Eddie Redmayne), who turns his back on his upper-crust background — his father is legendary historian Kenneth Clark — to take a grunt job with Laurence Olivier’s production company.
Unfortunately, young Clark winds up being the least-interesting facet of the movie, leaving the audience to forlornly watch more potentially fascinating plot elements drift away in favor of observing a young man swoon over an untenable object of desire.
That the object of desire is Marilyn Monroe (Michelle Williams) helps matters greatly, but not enough to make “My Week with Marilyn” particularly compelling.
Soon after marrying playwright Arthur Miller, Monroe traveled to England to star opposite Olivier (Kenneth Branagh) in the film version of “The Prince and the Showgirl.”
Olivier played the prince onstage opposite his wife Vivien Leigh (Julia Ormond), but since she was considered too old for the movie, Olivier replaces her with Monroe, who shows up on the set with acting coach Paula Strasberg (Zoë Wanamaker), despite Olivier’s well-known disregard for the Actors Studio and its championing of the Method.
The notoriously needy and difficult Monroe takes a shine to Colin, and he becomes the Marilyn Whisperer, coaxing her to the set when she’s too afraid to leave her dressing room. As the shoot drags on — and Miller (Dougray Scott) returns to America after an upset Monroe finds his preliminary notes for “After the Fall” — Colin and Marilyn spend days together touring the countryside, visiting Eton, and (platonically) enjoying each other’s company.
Eventually, Marilyn departs, leaving a bewitched and besotted Colin in her wake. And that’s about it.
There are any number of more interesting movies that could have been made with this material. One about Olivier and Monroe’s working relationship, perhaps, with the King of the Old Vic meeting the Queen of Hollywood, each unable to speak the other’s language, and each in awe of the other’s gifts as a performer. Or perhaps a film about Monroe and Miller — why they got together and how it all fell apart.
Heck, even a movie about the unlikely friendship between Monroe and Dame Sybil Thorndike (Judi Dench), an old-school star of the stage who is portrayed here as being kind and nurturing to the frightened American actress in so far over her depth.
But no, we get a movie about Marilyn and Colin instead, and he’s a crashing bore, whether he’s mooning after Monroe or trying to make time with the film’s young wardrobe mistress (Emma Watson, making her way in a post-“Harry Potter” universe).
If there’s one purpose that “My Week with Marilyn” serves, it’s as a jewel box to display the performances by Williams, Branagh, Ormond and Dench. The latter two get just a few scenes, but they’re riveting to watch; even though they’re playing real people, they never dip into caricature but instead capture these familiar faces and voices in a way that feels thoroughly organic.
