Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day (9/10)
by Tony Medley
This dual-Cinderella story
is, very simply, movie-making at its zenith. A story about how goodness
can triumph in a hard world, in 1939 London, Miss Guinevere Pettigrew
(Frances McDormand) is an unsuccessful governess who continues to get
dismissed from her positions because of her strict feeling of right and
wrong. After her last dismissal, despite her strict opinion of right and
wrong, she realizes that she must seize the day, so she purloins a card
of a client who wants a social secretary off the desk of her employment
agent. With trepidation, she goes to a flat where she meets Delysia
Lafosse (Amy Adams; and Adams is, indeed, delicious), a fledgling
American actress who is faced with an immediate serious problem; a man
in her bed with one of her boy friends en route back to the flat, which
happens to belong to him. Thus starts a movie so charming that the way
it is made is even better than the story. But, don’t get me wrong, the
story is a rewarding fairy tale.
Brilliantly directed by
Bharat Nalluri, with a screenplay credited to David Magee and Simon
Beaufoy, it is from a 1938 novel by Winifred Watson. Watson told her son
that she wrote it in six weeks, that she would go over dialogue in her
mind while she was washing dishes, and then write after finishing the
dishes.
After she enters Delysia’s
flat, Miss Pettigrew is immediately aswim in a social swirl apparently
beyond her ken as Delysia is involved with not two, but three men;
devoted but destitute pianist Michael (Lee Pace), who loves and adores
her, intimidating nightclub owner Nick (Mark Strong), who manipulates
her, and the young producer casting his first show, Phil (Tom Payne),
whom she is trying to manipulate in order to get the part.
Thrown into the mix is the fact that
Miss
Pettigrew herself is shyly attracted to the Joe (Ciarán Hinds), a
successful designer who is tenuously engaged to haughty fashion maven
Edythe (Shirley Henderson) – the one person who senses that the new
“social secretary” may be out of her element, and schemes to undermine
her.
One of the many things I
liked about the film is that the least person in the room generally
becomes the most important. McDormand says, “The one major script change
I made was to get away from the idea that Miss Pettigrew’s rhythm was
one of reticence and shyness, and that she was incapable of finishing a
sentence. My change was that she complete every sentence; Miss Pettigrew
knows exactly what she thinks and what she wants to say – it’s that
people just don’t hear her finish her sentence, because they don’t
realize she’s there.” This is a moral that can teach an important lesson
to lots of people who don’t listen today.
It’s a treat to see two
wonderful actresses like McDormand and Adams play off one another. I
don’t know who is the star here and who is the supporting actress, but
both should get Oscar® nominations. When Adams is onscreen, I can’t
imagine anyone giving a better performance, a spot on barely-disguised
imitation of Marilyn Monroe. Whenever she is onscreen, she sparkles. She
has such a wide range of emotions to portray, and she carries them off
with aplomb, never forgetting the comedic roots of the film.
As always, McDormand is
perfectly low-key, conveying her convictions but discomfiture in her
unfamiliar role of social secretary. The rest of the cast is equally
adept in portraying the world of high-society London just before the
outbreak of World War II. In fact, producer Stephen Garrett admits,
“There could have been no other Miss Pettigrew. It was inconceivable
that anyone else could have played the role. Had we lost her for any
reason, the project would have collapsed.”
What adds immeasurably to
the filmmaking is the innovative cinematography of John de Borman. I
loved looking at the gorgeous Adams, but what really stole the film for
me were the camera angles and the way the camera and the sets moved. Pay
attention to this cinematography and it will make an enjoyable movie
even better.
March 8, 2008 |