Despite my dislike of celebrity deification, I grew up like lots of li’l girls – counting on landing looks like Gwen Stefani, or the ever-classic icon she emulated, Marilyn Monroe.
And then being obviously disappointed like 80% of the population who might’ve been happier had they just seen her more relateable off-camera snappies like this one:
(Maybe it’s ’cause she’s having a barbiturate barbeque by the pool, but homegirl looks far happier sans makeup, and with her dog and stuff.)
Given the many crappy attempts to channel the retro-starlet in various films (which totally missed the mark), I was kind of disappointed when “My Week With Marilyn” came out several years ago. Mind you, I liked it as a chick flick. Really. And Michelle Williams did quite well at easing into the role without coming off like a parody. Much like Williams’ husband Heath – who visibly had traces of “The Joker” persona (the lip licking and Lynchian voice) going into subsequent interviews prior to his passing (R.I.P, homie) – Michelle too seemed to carry remnants of Monroe into discussions like the round table with other big timers.
In fact, Franco kept unknowingly giving her this look whenever she spoke:
To be fair, everyone was trying their hardest to hide that same reaction.
It’s to be expected, I suppose. I’m not in film, but we are what we practice repeatedly and our perceived reality is that in which we submerge ourselves consistently. For an actor (or anyone in any creative sort’ve profession), I suppose you’d better have a pretty good outside-of-work life in order to keep in touch with reality and avoid the void of cray-cray vacuuming you up.
And exactly that – reality – is my only real gripe about the film.
Not that it inaccurately portrayed Monroe (they never can perfectly, can they? Everyone has a different version). But as the tale was meant to be from the kid who played the “third” on the set – the Colin character (and meant to be based on actual events) , I had a problem with believing even the film’s creators believed it. When I first saw the film, I liked the easy fluff of it, Michelle’s performance, the wardrobe, lighting, cinematography, and that it was based on a true story. But something bothered me in the content that I could neither shake nor put my finger on.
After seeing the documentary “The Prince, The Showgirl, and Me” – about the actual kid on the production, I think I know why.
A lot of “My Week With Marilyn” comes off like a reenacted lie you might tell your buddies to sound cool (“Marilyn and I had a secret sexless affair!”).
There’s a phone call conversation scene that seemed contrived. Then there was the scene at the end – her showing up at the pub to say goodbye to him – that was lacking in veracity also.Then, at other points it even morphs into what sounds like delusions of grandeur (Marilyn insisting Colin show up at her house when she doesn’t know him, Colin heroically scaling a ladder to Marilyn’s room, her handlers give up on trying to unlock the door while a stranger was in the room with her).
When I finally saw the documentary based on the journals from the actual real-life Colin, I realized the kid wasn’t even some square or doe eyed English ingénue. He was far more intriguing- a pretty cheeky closet queen. To be honest, the documentary was far better and the real Colin seemed like far more fun.
But even the documentary seemed like bullshit.
I mean, he documented day after day of production and, for whatever reason, kept out all of his alleged dalliances with Miss Monroe… until the very end. The whole affair was neatly consolidated into one letter for a friend. Convenient.
None of these stories are probably accurate portrayals of what truly transpired. And no one really cares. None of this historical chronology about people made of the same meat drawn from stardust as you and I… really fckkng matter.
But, my thing is, so long as we’re gonna keep making faux-reality movies that require negative twelve percent of our brainpower to view, can we please, please keep in the snarky gay guy?
Or just do a reprisal with the kid from Glee – “My week with Britney”
Yeah. Let’s make that happen – even though I kinda feel like the whole movie’d be a peen equipped fangirl following her around like a lapdog while she makes this face:
(Yes, he’s definitely right behind you.)