My Week With Marilyn vs Country Strong

It’s curious that Marilyn Monroe is always profiled as having been vulnerable and  girlish, yet her inspiration, at least among later generations of Hollywood, seems to have fallen on steamrolling, ball-busting, narcissists. Everyone from Lindsay Lohan to Sharon Stone has done a spin on what they consider to be Monroe’s persona, losing their way somewhere after dying their hair. Marilyn Monroe movies are a bit of an acquired taste; her acting style is so specific and mannered that she takes getting used to. I’ve seen a few of them, and find Marilyn fascinating to watch (impossible not to watch), even when the material, or her connection to it, doesn’t hold up. I see some of her appeal in funny, soft, flirty actresses like Liv Tyler and Christina Hendricks, but until My Week With Marilyn, it never occurred to me that Michelle Williams would be the one to nail her on screen.

Williams has done most of her best work in supporting roles, and in from-the-ground-up independent movies like Blue Valentine. She probably has more in common with earthier actors like Gena Rowlands and Sissy Spacek than a bombshell like Marilyn Monroe, no matter how conflicted and fragile we’ve been led to believe she was. In My Week With Marilyn, Williams bring us that side of Marilyn Monroe; she’s paranoid, confused, over-medicated and undependable, but also sweet and good-humored. Williams also turns up the volume for the Marilyn Monroe that is indeed a charismatic sun that other actors orbit on screen. Williams mastered the important beats a good impersonation requires: the wiggle, the voice, the slow blink. But she’s got something else, some undefined quality that comes through in the recreations of Monroe’s performances. It’s impossible to believe completely that we’re watching Marilyn Monroe, but there’s zero doubt that we’re watching a star.

Marilyn is in England, to film The Prince And the Showgirl with Laurence Olivier. The press swarms, because of Marilyn’s celebrity, and also because of her recent marriage to the Red Scare controversial Arthur Miller (Dougray Scott). At first, everyone’s smitten. Olivier (Kenneth Branagh) and his wife, Vivien Leigh (Julia Ormond) have certainly met big stars before (and have been big stars themselves), but they admire the spectacle of Marilyn. They understand she’ll raise the profile of the movie, and add a spark of charisma it might not have gotten from a lesser presence. The movie gets a bit of ironic mileage out of the idea that in her early forties, Leigh was washed-up and ugly. She understands that part of Marilyn’s appeal is that everyone falls in love with her, even if it’s just for the length of a movie, or a movie shoot. No one understands this more than Colin (Eddie Redmayne), the Third Assistant Director of the film. Don’t be fooled by his title; Colin is basically a production assistant, who has little to do with the actual production. He’s assigned things like finding houses for the actors to live in. He’s good at it though, and trustworthy, and soon finds himself part of Marilyn’s inner circle. Whether it was Colin’s youth, or his honesty (or his imagination, someone has to say it), Marilyn Monroe was taken with the boy, and for a week during the movie shoot, they spent a few forbidden days together.

The chief problem of My Week With Marilyn is telling the story from Colin’s point of view. No one sees that title and thinks, “Huh, I wonder who My refers to? I bet he’s interesting!” Marilyn is the draw. We’re told over and over that she’s the most important person on the film set, and that her mere presence inspires awe and sympathy. Colin’s story: he’s trying to make it on his own without help from his rich family. Poor guy. Eddie Redmayne is fine in the part, but the scenes without Marilyn serve only to remind us how vital she is to the story. Colin goes on a date with the smart costume girl (Emma Watson), and it’s a cute diversion, but it’s a diversion from Marilyn Monroe potentially ruining her marriage, Laurence Olivier’s movie, Laurence Olivier’s marriage (stop me if one of these sounds less interesting than Colin’s date with the costume girl.) This insistence on making Colin the main character, this everyman entry into the story, is unnecessary. We’re already at the movies; we accept fully that movie stars exist.

It’s worth it. Like Phillip Seymour Hoffman in Capote, and Joaquin Phoenix in Walk The Line, Williams delivers an illusion of Marilyn by starting from the inside out. She suggests her so much that we’re fully invested in watching an actual person, a human being with ideas, opinions, talents and insecurities exclusively her own. If My Week With Marilyn is accurate, that’s exactly what Marilyn Monroe wanted for herself.

My Week With Marilyn was directed by Simon Curtis, who typically does British TV movies. Curtis handles My Week With Marilyn with the same care taken with those projects, putting an emphasis on historical accuracy (the costumes, sets, and supporting actors look like they were chosen by an archivist). My Week With Marilyn is technically a drama, but Curtis wisely pitches the difficulties on the movie set at comedy. Marilyn’s screw-ups (she’s always late, can’t remember any line she doesn’t find plausible, constantly consults her acting coach instead of her director) keep the film’s progress in question, and Olivier on the verge of madness. Branagh’s performance is interesting, because it’s a more traditional approach to mimicry. Olivier’s biggest gripe about Marilyn is that her method acting prevents her from just pretending when she’s uninspired. That Branagh and Williams apparently tackle their roles the way their characters would is a sly joke hidden in the movie.

I’ve never made a movie, but I feel like the more valuable the star, the more bullshit I’d be willing to put up with. Russell Crowe’s an asshole? Fine by me. Charlize Theron wants a bigger trailer? Coming right up. Kelly Canter drinks too much and shows up late for—wait a second, who?

Kelly Canter (Gwyneth Paltrow) is the biggest country singer in the world. Or in this country, I guess. Does “Country Music” mean something different to each country? Like any country singer worth her reputation, Kelly is a bit of a nightmare. She’s a drunk, prone to depression, suicidal, a messy crier, will throw a bottle at the wall right by your head. You know the drill.

We learn most of what we need to know about Kelly in the opening moments of Country Strong. She’s in rehab, flirting and singing with a…nurse? Sponsor? Therapist? Janitor? I’m not sure what he does there, but Beau (Garrett Hedlund) is Kelly’s confidant in rehab, and wouldn’t you know it, also an aspiring country singer. Her husband (Tim McGraw) doesn’t like Kelly at all, but has a Svengali relationship with her, and needs her to bring in the big tour dollars. He breaks her out of rehab early, and they hit the road. Kelly isn’t ready, and rebels in all the ways that sent her to rehab in the first place. Sleeping around, chugging vodka, crying black streaks down her face. Neglecting the symbolic baby bird she keeps in a little box (don’t ask.). In the meantime, Beau and Chiles (Leightonn Meester) share a burgeoning romance and progress in their respective singing careers.

Obviously, much of Country Strong is unintentionally funny, and if you’ve seen any other fictionalized music world melodrama (The Rose, The Bodyguard, Eddie And The Cruisers), you can guess a lot of the plot-points. The key here is Gwyneth Paltrow, who invests fully in making Kelly Canter a believable character. Kelly’s as good and charismatic of a performer as any of her real world contemporaries (Paltrow sings as well or better than Shania Twain, Faith Hill or Miranda Lambert), and Patrow makes a convincing movie addict. But we’re asked to believe that the world revolves around Kelly, that her performances inspire wonder and admiration, that she’s a Marilyn Monroe cosmic being that makes all the pain and inconvenience she causes worth it, because she’s so spellbinding and irreplaceable when she’s in her zone. She’s good, but I don’t see any reason she can’t finish her twenty-eight days first.

My Week With Marilyn: B+

Country Strong: C-