'My Week with Marilyn': A legend recalled

In this film publicity image released by The Weinstein Company,... — In this film publicity image released by The Weinstein Company, Dougray Scott portrays Arthur Miller and Michelle Williams portrays Marilyn Monroe in a scene from "My Week with Marilyn." Credit: AP

By RAFER GUZMÁNrafer.guzman@newsday.comNovember 23, 2011

The title hints at scandal, but "My Week With Marilyn" offers a sympathetic portrait of Marilyn Monroe (Michelle Williams) as seen through the understandably wide eyes of a lowly production assistant who briefly kept her company in 1956. Not much happens during that week, aside from a few tender moments and a twinge of heartbreak, but the lack of sensationalism at least gives this modest movie a ring of truth.

Eddie Redmayne plays Colin Clark, a well-born Brit whose memoirs provide the basis for the film. Determined to break into the movies, Colin becomes an assistant to Laurence Olivier (a wonderful Kenneth Branagh), who is directing and starring with Monroe in the light comedy "The Prince and the Showgirl." It's a business-savvy partnership between two legends, each craving entree to the other's world.

As the cripplingly insecure Monroe and the overwrought Olivier butt heads (Judi Dench plays actress Dame Sybil Thorndike, who tries to referee), Monroe takes solace in Colin. He's young and guileless, which makes him a safe bet for smooching, skinny-dipping and fully-clothed spooning. Too bad for Lucy (Emma Watson, fleetingly), the wardrobe girl Colin was dating, but the noblest man among us probably would have made the same choice.

As Monroe, Williams can't quite get past the iconic blond wig and beauty mark to the person underneath -- but who could? Instead, she presents Monroe as a type of woman: wounded and needy but also shrewdly self-protective. It's the right choice, though perhaps the only one any actress could make.

"My Week With Marilyn" is framed as a coming-of-age story, but Redmayne's Colin isn't compelling enough to make that angle work. The movie is really just a fond tribute to an icon whose life -- even the smallest slice -- remains a source of fascination.

PLOT During a 1956 film production, a lowly assistant finds himself frolicking with Marilyn Monroe.

RATING R (language, nudity, drug use, adult themes)