LET ME TELL YOU ABOUT "MY WEEK WITH MARILYN"

I have an embarrassing confession to make. Before this whole Oscar malarkey happened with A Theory of Everything, I hadn’t really heard of Eddie Redmayne. I’m trying not to feel too bad about it, judging from the sheer volume of Eddie Redmayne films now emerging on TV, the powers that be are banking on a lot of other people not having seen the films or heard of him either. Still, these films were out there and they weren’t exactly kept on the hush – hush so how I managed to miss him so completely is a bit of a mystery to me…

That said, here is yet another film by Eddie Redmayne that I personally had never heard of. Or I mean I had, but I had no idea that it was such a star-spangled cast, that it starred Eddie Redmayne (and that he was quite so good in short, I had no idea what I had missed out on. Marilyn Monroe is without a shadow of a doubt one of the most iconic women that ever walked the earth. Her mystery and how truly complicated she was, no doubt is now an integral part of her mystique. She is Marilyn because she is so hard to understand. This is the true story of a one-week long look a regular lad got into her world…

Colin Clark (Eddie Redmayne) has just launched himself into the world of film. He has started from the very bottom – and at 3^rd A.D. it doesn’t really get closer to the bottom than that – but he is quick witted and sociable, so set to go far. And as luck would have it the very first film he finds himself on is The prince and the showgirl starring (in case you didn’t know) Marilyn Monroe (Michelle Williams), Sir Lawrence Olivier (Kenneth Branagh) and Dame Sybil Thorndike (Judi Dench), it doesn’t really get much bigger than this. The trouble is, of course, Marilyn is, well, Marilyn… Notoriously difficult to work with for all kinds of reasons, within mere hours of arriving Marilyn risks throwing the entire production in to jeopardy. Colin’s job is to “manage” things and try as best he can to make sure things are running smoothly. This is how he ends up so close to Marilyn… And like a moth in front of a flame,   he cannot take his eyes off her….

First of all, of course, it was an iconic and wonderful love story. The eternal attraction of a “nobody” (Colin is the son of a very rich and privileged family, true,  but this means nothing on the film set. Well I mean apart from that this is what got his foot through the door, but I’ll let you discover that as you go along), anyway, a nobody,   capturing the heart of an icon dreamt of by millions is present here. Add the attraction of an “insight” into someone like Monroe with the aid of a “personal diary” pulls the crowds right in. And as the film attempts to provide this insight, I have to say, Michelle Williams is simply mind-boggling as Marilyn. Her chemistry with Redmayne’s young and naïve Colin is really extraordinary.  Of course how much of an insight we get we can actually never know. Even if Colin’s diary was followed to the letter (and in these adaptations this is a rare thing, as most of us know by now) how accurately  and objectively does the diary describe the enigma that was Marilyn? Williams captures and channels the energy of the on screen Monroe perfectly and displays a thought-provoking performance for the off stage one. If nothing else, this is definitely a film to build a dream on.

Redmayne’s part is one that could actually have been given to a young Hugh Grant back in  his day. Luckily the canny young actor has gracefully side-stepped being typecast and has taken on bigger and more complicated roles since. It’s by no means an original role for him, the typical ingénue getting to know the magical, cynical world that is acting and cinema. He pulls it off with aplomb, as does Emma Watson (who I haven’t had a moment to mention up to this point) who has a secondary and unenviable role of Colin’s initial love interest and Marilyn Monroe’s “rival”.

The other thing is of course, we come close to the enigma that was Marilyn but the film doesn’t really “explain” anything. Then again, what is the point of a legend that has been explained to death? We strike the balance, take a closer look only for a minute – pretty much like Colin – and then the curtains close. We are left to our own musings and dreams. But this, as we have said, is as it should be.