My Week with Marilyn (2011)

Colin Clark, an employee of Sir Laurence Olivier's, documents the tense interaction between Olivier and Marilyn Monroe during the production of The Prince and the Showgirl (1957).

Director:

Simon Curtis

Writers:

Adrian Hodges (screenplay), Colin Clark (books)

Stars:

Michelle Williams, Eddie Redmayne, Kenneth Branagh

Nominated for 2 Oscars. Another 19 wins & 59 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Michelle Williams	...	Marilyn Monroe
Eddie Redmayne	...	Colin Clark
Julia Ormond	...	Vivien Leigh
Kenneth Branagh	...	Sir Laurence Olivier
Pip Torrens	...	Sir Kenneth Clark
Geraldine Somerville	...	Lady Jane Clark
Michael Kitchen	...	Hugh Perceval
Miranda Raison	...	Vanessa
Karl Moffatt	...	Jack Cardiff
Simon Russell Beale	...	Cotes-Preedy
Toby Jones	...	Arthur Jacobs
Robert Portal	...	David Orton
Philip Jackson	...	Roger Smith
Jim Carter	...	Barry
Victor McGuire	...	Andy

Storyline

Sir Laurence Olivier is making a movie in London. Young Colin Clark, an eager film student, wants to be involved and he navigates himself a job on the set. When film star Marilyn Monroe arrives for the start of shooting, all of London is excited to see the blonde bombshell, while Olivier is struggling to meet her many demands and acting ineptness, and Colin is intrigued by her. Colin's intrigue is met when Marilyn invites him into her inner world where she struggles with her fame, her beauty and her desire to be a great actress.

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Plot Keywords:

marilyn monroe character | actress | assistant director | movie star | blonde bombshell | 

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Genres:

Biography | Drama

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated R for some language

Details

Official Sites:

Official site Official site [Switzerland]

Country:

UK USA

Language:

English French

Release Date:

23 December 2011 (USA)

Also Known As:

Mi semana con Marilyn

Filming Locations:

Windsor Castle, Windsor, Berkshire, England, UK

Box Office

Budget:

£6,400,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend USA:

$1,750,507, 18 November 2011, Limited Release

Gross USA:

$14,600,347

Cumulative Worldwide Gross:

$35,057,696

Company Credits

Production Co:

The Weinstein Company, BBC Films, Lipsync Productions

Technical Specs

Runtime:

99 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital Datasat

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Toby Jones's character Arthur P. Jacobs, Marilyn Monroe's then publicist, later became well known as the producer of Doctor Dolittle (1967), Planet of the Apes (1968) and its sequels, and Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1969).

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Goofs

The beauty spot on Marilyn's face is missing in one scene and moves from the left to the right side of her face in at least one scene.

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Quotes

[first lines]
Title Card: In 1956, at the height of her career, Marilyn Monroe went to England to make a film with Sir Laurence Olivier. While there she met a young man named Colin Clark, who wrote a diary about the making of the film. This is their true story.

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Connections

Referenced in Edición Especial Coleccionista: Las amistades peligrosas (2012)

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Soundtracks

When Love Goes Wrong (Nothin' Goes Right)
Written by Harold Adamson and Hoagy Carmichael
Performed by Michelle Williams
Published by EMI First Catalog Inc., Peer Music (UK) Ltd (c/o Songs of Peer Ltd)
Courtesy of The Weinstein Company
Arranged and Produced by David Krane

User Reviews

Michelle Williams overcomes the low budget

Remember "The Prince And The Showgirl"? I saw it for the first time only a few years ago, after the death of all the protagonists. The miracle, and it is indeed a miracle, Marilyn felt so alive, so contemporary. In "My Week With Marilyn" Michelle Williams is full of light, the real light, the internal one, while everyone else is deadly opaque. The film feels like a very low budget TV movie and not even the grand manors and colleges manage to give it the production value, the story deserved. But Michelle Williams is truly enchanting. Not that she is a dead ringer for the real Marilyn. So much more demure, smaller breasts, smaller behind, only her strange kind of melancholia seems to match the original one and some of that magic essence appears to be in place. Eddie Redmayne, the narrator, whose POV drives the story is rather a cool fish. His grasp is so limp and small that I was kept longing for more. Kenneth Brannagh is very funny and Judi Dench, terrific, but Julia Ormond as Vivien Leigh is just so wrong one wants to fast-forward, unfortunately, that's impossible right now. But, let's go back to Michelle Williams, the one reason to see this film and in itself she's reason enough.