Summary My Week with Marilyn 2011
Colin Clark, an employee of Sir Laurence Olivier, documents the tense interaction between Olivier and Marilyn Monroe during the production of The Prince and the Showgirl (1957).
Sir Laurence Olivier (Sir Kenneth Branagh) is making a movie in London. Young Colin Clark (Eddie Redmayne), an eager film student, wants to be involved and he navigates himself a job on the set. When movie star Marilyn Monroe (Michelle Williams) arrives for the start of shooting, all of London is excited to see the blonde bombshell, while Olivier is struggling to meet her many demands and acting ineptness, and Colin is intrigued by her. Colin's intrigue is met when Marilyn invites him into her inner world where she struggles with her fame, her beauty, and her desire to be a great actress.
In 1956, Sir Laurence Olivier (Sir Kenneth Branagh) is directing a movie and he casts Marilyn Monroe (Michelle Williams), and clearly Marilyn is getting on Olivier's nerves because she's difficult to work with, because of her lack of confidence. But Colin Clark (Eddie Redmayne), an aspiring filmmaker Olivier hired to work as an assistant, somehow develops a rapport with Marilyn and convinces her she can do it, and she does. Eventually, Clark falls for Marilyn and everyone tells him, there's no future for them. But he doesn't care.
Young Oxford graduate Colin Clark (Eddie Redmayne) has dreams of getting into the movies, or, as he prefers to say, "run off to the circus". He pursues a production position, and is eventually named Third Assistant Director for The Prince and the Showgirl (1957). Directed by and starring Sir Laurence Olivier (Sir Kenneth Branagh), the movie also stars Marilyn Monroe (Michelle Williams). While Olivier, the renowned stage actor is looking to become a movie star, Monroe is a movie star looking to be seen as a serious actress. Monroe is terribly self-conscious, has her own full-time acting coach in Paula Strasberg (Zoë Wanamaker), and is frequently late. It all drives Olivier a bit mad and he assigns Colin to supervise her and make sure she gets to work on time. Colin and Marilyn soon develop a rapport and they have a positive effect on one another.
England 1956. Bucking the trend of his highly successful academic and aristocratic family, twenty-three year old Colin Clark (Eddie Redmayne) is instead determined to work on the production side of movies. Having met him previously, Colin doggedly pursues a job, any job, with Laurence Olivier Productions. Because the company will soon be filming a movie titled "The Sleeping Prince" (which will eventually become The Prince and the Showgirl (1957)), Colin eventually gets a job as an unpaid assistant, which morphs into a paid job as Third Assistant Director for the lighthearted comedy, which is to star Sir Laurence Olivier (Sir Kenneth Branagh) and Marilyn Monroe (Michelle Williams), whose entourage includes her husband, playwright Arthur Miller (Dougray Scott), and one of her Method acting coaches, Paula Strasberg (Zoë Wanamaker), and be directed by Olivier. Colin sees that Monroe is a very scared and insecure person about her acting abilities, and thus paranoid, she who requires the constant support of her entourage, especially Miller and Strasberg. These insecurities lead to problems on the set with almost all of the others, which is exacerbated by Olivier's angry frustration toward her, he who does not believe in the Method. It does not help that Olivier's wife, Vivien Leigh (Julia Ormond) has her own insecurities about what she believes is Olivier's romantic fascination with Monroe. Seeing the problems, Colin tries to bolster Marilyn's confidence with his own secret words of encouragement. So when Miller decides to head back to the U.S. early, leaving a fragile Marilyn to feel abandoned, she searches for another source of support which she believes she has found in Colin. Colin's ensuing time with Marilyn during production threatens many things in his life, including his burgeoning romantic relationship with the production's wardrobe assistant, Lucy (Emma Watson). Through the process, Colin may be in way over his head, as most people who see him and Marilyn together suspect he is.
