My Week with Marilyn (2011) Review

Colin Clark spent a week with Marilyn Monroe when she was in England filming The Prince and the Showgirl with Laurence Olivier.

I had been looking forward to this film since first hearing about it and so pleased that I enjoyed it from start to finish. I have always loved Marilyn Monroe because of the fantastic quotes and incredible screen presence she has. I know quite a lot about her background of the difficult yet so tragically short life she had. So much more than a dumb blonde!

This film gives us an insight into what a tortured soul she really was. Everyone expecting her to be so much more than she really was. They wanted her to be Monroe all of the time and that was not a real person.

The story is from the point of view of Colin Clark who wanted to be in the film industry more than anything and ended up getting himself a job as third assistant director to Laurence Olivier – who was directing a film for the first time. With the experience leaving him not wanting to direct any more!

I found Michelle Williams performance to be just brilliant and at times very scary at how much she looked and sounded like Marilyn, she really became her for the film.

So seeing everything through Colin’s eyes we got an insight of how Marilyn really was behind the scenes. We get to see how vulnerable she was behind the camera, and the different troubles she came up against. Newly married to play-write Arthur Miller who left her in London alone. This was when Colin became a person Marilyn confided in and talked to. He so obviously fell in love with her, which is what a lot of men seemed to do.

I really enjoyed the film, mainly due to the format it was in. We got to see things from an outsiders point of view, and the way the film was being done. Dame Judi Dench was her usual brilliant self in a pretty small role, yet was still ever so memorable.

I can see this film being very well received and a one I would like to watch again very soon! Overall a very nice film to watch, I found it just flew over.