page_title: My Week with Marilyn
section_title: Critical reception
hierarchical_section_title: My Week with Marilyn / Reception / Critical reception
caption_attribution_description: English: American actress Michelle Williams leaving the press conference for the film Shutter Island in the snow.
context_page_description: My Week with Marilyn is a 2011 drama film directed by Simon Curtis and written by Adrian Hodges. It stars Michelle Williams, Kenneth Branagh, Eddie Redmayne, Dominic Cooper, Julia Ormond, Emma Watson, and Judi Dench. Based on two books by Colin Clark, it depicts the making of the 1957 film The Prince and the Showgirl, which starred Marilyn Monroe and Laurence Olivier. The film concerns the week during the shooting of the 1957 film when Monroe was escorted around London by Clark, after her husband Arthur Miller had returned to the United States.
  Principal photography began on 4 October 2010, at Pinewood Studios. Filming took place at Saltwood Castle, White Waltham Airfield, and on locations in and around London. Curtis also used the same studio in which Monroe had shot The Prince and the Showgirl in 1956. My Week with Marilyn had its world premiere at the New York Film Festival on 9 October 2011, and was shown at the Mill Valley Film Festival two days later. The film was released on 23 November 2011, in the United States, and on 25 November in the United Kingdom.
context_section_description: The film received generally positive reviews from critics, with Williams' performance receiving acclaim. Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reports that 83% of 156 critics have given the film a positive review, with a rating average of 7.1 out of 10. According to the site's summary of the critical consensus, "Michelle Williams shines in My Week with Marilyn, capturing the magnetism and vulnerability of Marilyn Monroe." Metacritic, which assigns a score of 1–100 to individual film reviews, gives the film an average rating of 65 based on 38 reviews. David Rooney from The Hollywood Reporter praised Williams' performance and said she nailed Monroe's vocal style. Rooney also praised Redmayne as Clark, saying his scenes with Williams were captivating. However, Rooney went on to say "Fault lies with both Hodges' workmanlike script and Curtis' failure to excavate much psychological depth." He added My Week with Marilyn is starchy and short on perspective, making it "superficial showbiz pageantry." Ronnie Scheib of Variety said My Week with Marilyn "flits uneasily between arch drawing-room comedy and foreshadowed tragedy" and is too stagily directed by Curtis, who lines up the characters with "no attention to spatial logic or rhythmic flow." Scheib added the film coasts on Williams' performance, while the story feels like it has been ripped from film fan magazines of the time. Rex Reed of The New York Observer called My Week with Marilyn "pure perfection." 
  Adam Green of Vogue said the film does not quite reach "the high drama and urgency of a period piece like The King's Speech", but it does evoke a vanished era in filmmaking. Green added Williams is the main attraction and she brings Monroe to life "with heartbreaking delicacy and precision without resorting to impersonation or cliché." Regina Weinreich of The Huffington Post called My Week with Marilyn a "gem" and said the story "manages to convey so much of Marilyn, particularly her child-like vulnerability, her insecurity as an actress, her natural charm and talents. While we have seen Michelle Williams tap dance and heard her sing before -- she was superb in last year's Blue Valentine -- her moves and voice as Marilyn evoke the subject's understated, magnetic performances." Weinreich went on to praise the rest of the cast, including Redmayne, Branagh and Dench, saying they are "especially good." A writer for indieWire said My Week with Marilyn is like a "superficial Lifetime made for TV-movie." The writer went on to say the film is not terrible, but there is "very little meat on the bone." They added the film has a terrific cast who do their best with an average script. Robbie Collin, writing for The Daily Telegraph gave the film three out of five stars and said "Michelle Williams makes a mesmeric Monroe in My Week With Marilyn, but the film falls disappointingly short on boop-boop-be-doo."
  The Miami Herald's Rene Rodriguez gave the film three out of four stars. He said "One of the chief pleasures of My Week with Marilyn — which should not be approached as anything other than fluffy entertainment — is watching Williams bring to life Monroe's inner demons and her movie-star allure with equal aplomb." The New Yorker's film critic David Denby also praised Williams' performance as Monroe, saying "In My Week with Marilyn, Williams makes the star come alive. She has Monroe's walk, the easy, swivelling neck, the face that responds to everything like a flower swaying in the breeze. Most important, she has the sexual sweetness and the hurt, lost look that shifts, in a flash, into resistance and tears." The critic called the film "charming and touching" and said it is expertly made. Writing for Time, Mary Pols called My Week with Marilyn "nothing more than a lively confection." Pols went on to say "Williams locates a central truth, the contradictory allure of this utterly impossible woman — mercurial, vain, foolish, but also intelligent in some very primal way and achingly vulnerable." Upon giving the film three and a half out of four stars, critic Roger Ebert said "What matters is th
caption: Michelle Williams' performance garnered critical acclaim and she received her fourth SAG nomination and her third Academy Award & BAFTA nomination. She also received her first Golden Globe Award for her performance in this film.
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