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Movies Forum Index » Movie Reviews Forum » Review: Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day (2008)
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| Mark R. Leeper |
 Posted: Tue Apr 01, 2008 5:01 pm |
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MISS PETTIGREW LIVES FOR A DAY
(a film review by Mark R. Leeper)
CAPSULE: Bharat Nalluri directs the story based on a
novel by Winifred Watson of a luckless and now
jobless governess who manages to cheat her way into
a position as a social secretary for an attractive but
scatterbrained actress. Pettigrew, who never had much
luck managing her own life, finds she is perfect in
this job and can use it to help guide the actress to a
better life. The story uses too many contrived
coincidences and has too many major characters we just
do not care about. The cast is good, but the material
lets them down. Rating: +1 (-4 to +4) or 6/10
We are in late 1930s London, a city still in the clutches of the
Great Depression and just weeks away from entering World War II.
Guinevere Pettigrew (played by Frances McDormand) is in the
clutches of her own personal depression. The widow seems unable
to hold a job as a governess. Out of work and alone, she haunts
soup kitchens to get what food she can. When she hears of a job
working for an actress Delysia Lafosse (Amy Adams) she steals the
calling card with the address and tells the actress that the
agency sent her. Little does she know that in hours this job
would thrust her into the glamorous world of the beautiful
people.
This all could have been done with a Frank Capra sort of feel.
But there were small problems with the script. For me overall
the writing did not quite work. First there are multiple
important coincidences that occur to drive the plot. This leaves
the story with a contrived feel. And whatever good things come
to Pettigrew would not if she did not have enormous good luck.
We may be happy for her, but we do not feel her betterment came
from her personal virtues but because by chance she was lucky.
Still, the Capra-like plot might have worked if the characters
were appealing. Their being decent people would be their chief
virtue. Francis McDormand's Miss Pettigrew schlemiel does have
our empathy at the beginning, but by the middle of the film she
no longer seems the same Chaplinesque quality. Once her luck is
working for her and she seems a different character. Much of the
initial empathy wears off as she seems to know just the right
thing to do. Having better luck could have been a matter of
chance, but her savoir-faire seems to come out of no place. Even
Pettigrew seems puzzled that things start working out for her.
Her talent is neither explained nor motivated. Her new
capabilities are used to the benefit of Delycia. I Pettigrew
loses empathetic values Delycia never really has them in the
first place. In her scatter-brained way Delycia is managing to
string along three men for her own purposes and is getting
professional advantage using sex. Miss Pettigrew is helping her
to get what she wants out of life and the viewer may be less than
sure she deserves it. The smart set on London society never have
come off as so liberal in a film before. Immediately they seem
to accept Pettigrew as one of their own, even with her in her
mousy brown lower class clothing. Nobody gives her appearance
another thought.
Francis McDormand in the title role is a good actress and is
sufficiently convincing as a Londoner even being familiar from
American film, particularly those of the Coen Brothers going back
to their first film BLOOD SIMPLE. She is quite believable in the
part until the script calls for her to be beautiful. She is not
the traditional image of Hollywood beauty. That description
could to Amy Adams as Delysia. Most of the audience will
remember Adams for ENCHANTED. I missed that film, but she was
very good in 2005's JUNEBUG. Her character was a bit irritating
here, but that may be right for the character and she plays it to
the hilt. John de Borman's camera plays up her attractiveness
and repeatedly manages by just micro-millimeters to preserve here
modesty in scenes in which she is obviously nude. Ciaran Hinds
as seems to show up in a lot of films these days. In the last
few months he has been in MARGOT AT THE WEDDING, THERE WILL BE
BLOOD, and IN BURGES. In our household, however, his signature
role was as Julius Caesar in HBO's ROME miniseries. Here as Joe
Blumfield he plays the only character whose gravitas seems to
match Pettigrew's. Rounding out the roster of familiars is
Shirley Henderson whom we see in a lot of films, but is probably
best known as Moaning Myrtle in the Harry Potter films.
MISS PETTIGREW LIVES FOR A DAY is a fluffy little comedy that
calls heavily on its actors to make its characters amiable.
Somehow the characters never manage to make it all the way to
likable. This film works as a quick throwaway comedy, only 90
minutes long, but is likely to be quickly forgotten. I rate it a
+1 on the -4 to +4 scale or 6/10.
Film Credits: <http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0970468/>
Mark R. Leeper
mleeper@optonline.net
Copyright 2008 Mark R. Leeper |
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