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My Week with Marilyn
My Week with Marilyn Image
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Metascore
65 out of 100

Generally favorable reviews - based on 38 Critics What's this?

User Score
7.6 out of 10

Generally favorable reviews- based on 67 Ratings

Your Score
10 out of 10
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  • Summary: In the early summer of 1956, 23 year-old Colin Clark, just down from Oxford and determined to make his way in the film business, worked as a lowly assistant on the set of ‘The Prince and the Showgirl’. The film that famously united Sir Laurence Olivier and Marilyn Monroe, who was also on honeymoon with her new husband, the playwright Aurthur Miller. Nearly 40 years on, his diary account The Prince, the Showgirl and Me was published, but one week was missing and this was published some years later as My Week with Marilyn – this is the story of that week. When Arthur Miller leaves England, the coast is clear for Colin to introduce Marilyn to some of the pleasures of British life; an idyllic week in which he escorted a Monroe desperate to get away from her retinue of Hollywood hangers-on and the pressures of work. (The Weinstein Company)… Expand

Critic Reviews

Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 29 out of 38
  2. Mixed: 7 out of 38
  3. Negative: 2 out of 38
  1. San Francisco Chronicle
    Reviewed by: Mick LaSalle
    Nov 22, 2011
    100
    Michelle Williams doesn't just survive. Called upon to glow, she glows. Her performance doesn't solve all the riddles of that personality; none could, and it's for the best that Williams doesn't try.
  2. Empire
    Reviewed by: Angie Errigo
    Nov 23, 2011
    60
    At moments hilarious and others touching, it's a sweet, slight affair, more pretty pageant than pithy biographical drama. Expect awards nominations to stack up for Williams and Branagh.
  3. Wall Street Journal
    Reviewed by: Joe Morgenstern
    Nov 28, 2011
    30
    When bad movies happen to good people, the first place to look for an explanation is the basic idea. That certainly applies to My Week With Marilyn, a dubious idea done in by Adrian Hodges's shallow script and Simon Curtis's clumsy direction.

See all 38 Critic Reviews

User Reviews

Write a Review
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 26 out of 29
  2. Mixed: 1 out of 29
  3. Negative: 2 out of 29
  1. nameless
    10
    Excellent. The editing is wonderful, it gets you into the story before the characters take over. Michelle Williams nails the performance, just when you start to see the actress you slip right back into seeing Marilyn. The layers she has to play is amazing, not like the superficial cartoon that Kate Blanchett did of Katherine Hepburn (Aaarruggh). I was caught up in the movie for the full time (also not something I can say for the poorly edited Hugo). If you want to be taken to another time and place and believe it, this is the one. You also get the added benefit of understanding how this characters interacted without the "vengence" factor when characters get angry at one another in films today. The foreshadowing is subtle but clear yet you don't have clue how people will react.… Expand
    • 3 of 3 users said yes
  2. vidkid
    5
    This is a disappointing movie. How can a film about one of history's most iconic, mysterious and enchanting movie stars be so un-enchanting? Even Michelle Williams as Marilyn and Kenneth Branagh as Olivier cannot save this film from the boring direction of Simon Curtis. This is a story that had a chance to me as magical as Marilyn herself. Instead, we get what looks like incredibly staged and uninvolving scenes, a plethora of men swooning at Williams in basically every scene, and the look and feel of a TV movie of the week. There wasn't one scene of real substance here, save for some nice moments with Judi Dench, as Dame Sybil Thorndike, who is authentically sympathetic to Marilyn and defends her from the at times harsh and un-compassionate colleagues on the British movie set where they are working. The characters are little more than cardboard caricatures and lack the true character development of a more distinguished film. Williams tried hard, but had too much working against her here. At the end of the 102 minute running time, I still yearned to learn much more about this charismatic and troubled movie star-icon.… Expand
    • 0 of 0 users said yes
  3. dfinn104
    2
    Very overrated and very limited plot. A lot of lingering shots of Michelle Williams being coquette-ish and who doesn't look like herself anymore. So if looking at her is supposed to deliver satisfaction rather than plot this is really a homage to fillers I would have preferred much more scenes between Olivier and Marilyn. Not even that atmospheric, An Education did a much better job of capturing a bygone age (albeit a different one to this)… Expand
    • 1 of 1 users said yes

See all 29 User Reviews

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