The Dream that was...Marilyn Monroe

I have been quite an ardent Audrey Hepburn Admirer. Her beautiful radiant face oozing innocence, her infectious smile, her screen presence - almost everything about her has always been a source of fascination for me. Now they don't make them any more like this. I am not a 60 year, Grumpy old man who lives in the past, after all I am hardly 26 but what I think makes her much more alluring is there is so much we still don't know about her. While watching My Week With Marilyn(2011) yesterday, I kept on thinking about it. There is so much we do not know about these starlets that we can only speculate what it would be to be in their presence but maybe that is the reason that the likes of Audrey Hepburn, Marilyn Monroe, Grace Kelly still have an aura around them after so many years. All 3 of them had different reasons to be in limelight, Grace Kelly for her Elegance, Audrey Hepburn for her Innocence and Marilyn Monroe for her Sex Appeal but still, they don't make them like that anymore, do they ?

Directed by Simon Curtis, My Week with Marilyn(2011) tells us a story on the production of movie The Prince and the Showgirl and is based on couple of memoirs The Prince, The Showgirl and Me and My Week with Marilyn by Colin Clark who is also our Hero, played by Eddie Redmayne. The Prince is Sir Laurence Olivier who is also directing the concerned movie, played by Kenneth Branagh and quite obviously showgirl is Marilyn Monroe, played by Michelle Williams. Even though it is about movie and its production, it forms the secondary storyline in the film. What we look at prominently is the bond 3rd Assistant Director of Olivier Production, Colin forms with the most famous woman on the surface of the earth and the dream girl of many. The reason Sir Olivier wants to work with Miss Monroe is because of her show stopper ability and once the production starts these abilities become quite apparent as she literally stops the show frequently by never coming on time on sets, forgetting the simplest of the lines and having dreadful problems calming her nerves or staying focused. She has a natural talent of being sexy but she has taken on for herself to be the best actress and that is turning out to be quite a daunting task for her. Because of her manic depression, she tends to alienate herself from almost everyone. But as the tensions mount and swords clash on the set, quite surprisingly she starts to reach out to Colin off the set and tends to be herself in his company.

Even though I don't think it strictly fits into the definition of biopic, it does give us an insight into Marilyn Monroe's life - her persona outside the cinematic world, how she really was and that is not a pretty picture we are used to see on screen. She suffered from manic depression which will change her mood from beaming happy to morbid in a flicker of an eyelash. Perfect example would be a scene where she goes out shopping with her then husband Arthur Miller and suddenly is surrounded by mob once they recognize her. She seems happy initially but as mob starts to get little unruly, it instantly brings all her fears back on surface. She constantly needed to be told how great she was, whether it was to feed her massive ego or it was a genuine need we will never know but that was the only way she could wake up every morning - that and the bunch of pills she needed to take. Any instance, anything or anyone that might fracture her self image would push her deep into that depression. Marilyn Monroe as we know oozed her sex appeal and we see that Marilyn when she goes out in public, when she gives her first press conference upon her arrival in England or when she asks Colin 'Should I be her?' for all the workers in that castle or the boys in Colin's former school. It is almost impossible to take your eyes off her when she is into herself, almost gliding effortlessly through but that was not always the case. She also seems to be unaware of the effect she had on men, making them do what she wanted them to with just a wink. With Marilyn Monroe in your arms, there is no man on earth who will reject it but it might seem that she is toying with their emotions but it was all natural to her almost like a child who has had enough of one toy and moving on to the new one.

This is through and through a Michelle Williams movie. Not only because her character is the backbone of the whole story but because the performance she delivers here. Throughout the 2011 Award season, we had 3 actresses who were thought as shoe-ins for the Best Actress Award Nominations regardless of which awards we are talking about - Viola Davis for The Help(2011), Meryl Streep for The Iron Lady(2011) and Michelle Williams for My Week with Marilyn. The Help was the only movie I had seen by then and was perfectly happy with Davis being the front runner. I have still not seen The Iron Lady and have no intention of watching it unless someone pays me to do it. Viola Davis was always my pick of the lot whenever someone asked me about it. In case of Michelle Williams, my admiration for her was solely based on pedigree of Williams and nothing to do with her performance until yesterday when I finally saw My Week With Marilyn(2011). Well let us just say that, in my opinion she is even better than Viola Davis. Williams portrays all the emotions Marilyn goes through, her sexiness, her depression and every single facade between the two with perfection. I might go as far as calling it THE performance of her career - as good as Blue Valentine(2010) if not better.

Kenneth Branagh also does a splendid job of playing Sir Laurence Olivier, very worthy of his Oscar nomination. He is simply in awe of her beauty, that is the reason why he brought her to England but at the same time he never understands her, loosing his temper every now and then. It is like Colin says that he is a great actor who wants to be a film star and Marilyn is a film star who wants to be a great actress and  it keeps on getting in their way. Eddie Redmayne also is quite believable as a naive, innocent young man who is leaving his dream of working in film industry and just can't help falling in love with Marilyn. There are bunch of actors Emma Watson, Dominic Cooper and Dougray Scott, who do well in their respective jobs but are criminally underused - especially Judy Dench as Dame Sybil Thorndike and Julia Ormond as Vivien Leigh. But even then as the credits start to roll, I definitely wasn't content. It left something in me unfulfilled. It is very difficult to pin point what exactly, maybe I was hoping to have some answers as why she behaved like it? maybe something else - but something was missing.

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