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Such a frustrating disappointment

It's no definitive masterpiece but it's damn close.

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

Lots of reviewers scoffing at the veracity of the premise of the story. Some claiming incredulity that anyone could believe the story. I don't really understand that criticism. For me the veracity of the story is secondary, or tertiary even, to its believability on screen. Having said that I don't really know what kind of lives the critics of the story have had - black and white, with simple 2-dimensional characters I should imagine. In real life (my life at least) people do unexpected things. Troubled people are even more likely to do the unexpected. So I found it quite believable.Anyway, I finally got around to watching this film on DVD recently, long after critics and fans had moved on to newer pickings. I watched it 3 times in a week, and will certainly watch it again in the near future. I think it was well cast and well acted, and planted firmly and believably in the late 1950s. Suffice to say Michelle Williams is heartbreakingly good as Marilyn Monroe.

I mostly enjoyed this biopic of the production of The Prince and the Showgirl. Michelle Williams is excellent as Marilyn Monroe, and Eddie Redmayne does a decent job as the 3rd assistant director on the picture. Michelle Williams does an Oscar nominated performance as Marilyn and was wonderful. I enjoyed seeing how Marilyn might of been off camera and it was fun to see her be flirty. I also learned that her marriage to Arthur Miller was on the rocks just shortly after they were married, which makes her interest in Colin Clark more understandable. It shows how she was vulnerable and needed some comfort in a country she was not used to, during a production where she was not being treated as the star she was by Olivier.The movie is fairly slow, as many biopics are, but does well with the material. I enjoyed Michelle Williams performance mostly, and would recommend this movie to fans of Marilyn Monroe, and of bio pics. 7/10

Despite a fact-based story that strains credibility, an insightful look at the cinematic phenomena that was Marilyn Monroe makes the 2011 docudrama My Week with Marilyn worth watching.This film centers on an aspiring English show biz hopeful named Colin Clark who has been hired to be the Third Assistant Director to Sir Laurence Olivier during production of the film The Prince and the Showgirl and how Colin inexplicably becomes the only person that Marilyn trusts on the set of the film, and that includes her acting coach Paula Strasberg, who was a permanent fixture in Marilyn's life during this period.Director Simon Curtis has mounted an expensive, fact-based drama that so accurately brings to the screen the mania behind Marilyn and though it provides some mixed messages regarding the woman vs the myth, the messages are convincingly projected here. We always think that there's nothing new to learn about Marilyn at this point and this film doesn't really provide any new insight into the sex symbol, except for the possible fact that like a lot Marilyn's handlers, Marilyn was also aware that Marilyn Monroe was a "product" and that she was somebody else...someone else who whose deep-rooted sadness stemmed from the lack of strong parenting and that the feeling no one really loved her, including current spouse Arthur Miller.As expected with any film about Marilyn, the film documents the production schedule delays due to Marilyn's chronic lateness, the constant interference from Paula Strasberg, the inability to remember very simple lines, and best of all, Olivier's conflicted feelings about his leading lady...we see Olivier's aggravation with the actress' work ethic combined with his fascination with the woman who makes him feel young again and has wife Vivien Leigh more than concerned. I love the scene of Olivier sitting alone in a screening room being captivated by dailies of Marilyn. What I did find hard to believe here is that a movie star like Marilyn Monroe would become so completely enamored of a Third Assistant Director that she would forsake everyone else around her, including Olivier, Paula, and Arthur Miller.The film is well-cast with a nicely understated performance from Eddie Redmayne as Colin Clark, a young man who falls under the spell of Marilyn without even realizing it is happening. Kenneth Branaugh is charismatic as Laurence Olivier and mention should also be made of Julia Ormond as Vivien Leigh and a lovely turn from Dame Judi Dench as Dame Sybil Thorndyke, a co-star of The Prince and the Showgirl, who becomes Marilyn's onset Savior, but what this film has above everything else is a luminous, Oscar-nominated performance by Michelle Williams as Marilyn, a richly complex performance that nails Marilyn's vulnerability, insecurity, and best of all, her intelligence.The film boasts some impressive production values, including first rate cinematography and a lush music score and helps to make this film lovely to look at...along with the incredible Michelle Williams.

They look so real, but so what? Nobody born after about 1955 would know anything about Marilyn Monroe, and few would care.In this film she is portrayed as petulant, gullible, erratic, unfaithful, and only sometimes, as a brilliant actress, which is how she might wish to be remembered.The story of how Colin Clark met Monroe might be of interest to him, but few others? Eddie Redmayne does the part well, and so does Michelle Williams. Other great, but brief, performances come from Julia Ormond as Vivien Leigh and Lucy is Emma Watson, who clearly has a great future in the industry.But I very much doubt if there will ever be a film called "My Week with Emma Watson"!