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Movie Review: My Week with Marilyn

So there I was, somewhere between Kourtney and Kim and Chelsea Lately and my third glass of Pinot and I saw it. The trailer for “My Week with Marilyn.” It literally took me about 3 seconds and I was sold. Needless to say, I had no idea what the movie was about but this is Marilyn Monroe we’re talking about here. Her picture makes its appearance in every sorority girl’s apartment and she can somehow make a size 14 look good. She’s just…AH! She’s Marilyn Monroe! And this was a movie about her which was all I needed to know.

For those of you who only gathered from the trailer the things we already knew (everyone loves her but she has some serious baggage), the premise of the movie was a little different than I’d expected. That is to say, the title denotes “My week” so there’s like…another person involved, which had simply not occurred to me. Colin Clark is a bright-eyed, bushy-tailed (SUPER rich, and also kind of cute in a I-wouldn’t-date-you-but-I-totally-wanna-set-you-up-with-a-sister way) young man of 23, who is desperately trying to get his foot in the door of film. He somehow finds himself on the set of Marilyn Monroe and Sir Laurence Olivier’s newest film as the third assistant director, aka, the pledge bitch. Throughout the film’s production Marilyn proves to be a little difficult to work with. She’s incredibly high-maintenance, always late, and needs constant coddling (TSM), but of course…she’s MARILYN MONROE, so the rules don’t apply to her. If she wants to show up three hours late due to a hangover that none of ours will ever rival, they wait for her. Pledge bitch, Colin, is often sent to her to serenade her (ok that part didn’t happen) and coax her into coming to work because the actives don’t feel like dealing with a princess.

Throughout their dealings with one another Marilyn realizes that she and Colin have something in common: they’re both in love with her. She uses this to her advantage as her douchebag husband is away for a week. She spends her week frolicking through meadows and exploring castles with Colin, and making him tell her how incredible she is and how much he’s in love with her, and she doesn’t even sleep with him (TSM). The movie focuses more on their story than it does on the downward spiral that was her life like I’d been expecting. She was also sort of portrayed as less of a sassy, bad-ass, sexpot like I have her in my head, and more of a shy, polite, insecure lady who only played Marilyn as a role for the world.

As a whole, I didn’t love it. But then again, I also loved it. I was really distracted by Michelle Williams’ obvious butt pads and the fact that she’s not as absolutely stunningly beautiful as the real Marilyn (but I mean…who could be?). It took me awhile to figure out what was going on because a million characters were introduced at once. But it was still like…good. And I just love all things Marilyn. I felt the same way about Marie Antoinette. I didn’t really like the movie, I just really like glamorous things, and found myself constantly thinking “TSM” (maybe that’s because I awkwardly always have sorority on the brain). So I tricked myself into thinking I liked it. Overall, definitely still go see it (not that any opinion other than your own matters anyway), because hello. It’s Marilyn Monroe.

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