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Movie Review: Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day
by Bill Wine
WHAT IT'S ABOUT: In 1939 London, a middle-aged governess, recently dismissed from her job, finds employment as the social secretary of an American actress/singer who's romantically involved with three men.
RATING: PG-13
GENRE: Comedy
RELEASE DATE: March 7, 2008
RUNNING TIME: 92 minutes
VIOLENCE FACTOR: A few punches are thrown during a nightclub brawl.
BAD WORDS: The script includes occasional mild innuendo.
RACY PARTS: There is some casual near-nudity.
OTHER THINGS TO KNOW: Era-appropriate smoking and casual drinking in a nightclub setting are depicted. The off-screen promiscuity of one lead female character is implied and taken for granted.
GRANDS:
CRITIQUE:
Pity that Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day doesn't live — or at least linger longer — in the memory than it does.
After all, the contrast between the sly-boots restraint of Frances McDormand's Miss Pettigrew and the life's-a-banquet exuberance of Amy Adams' Miss Lafosse — both in terms of the their characters and their acting styles — should be delicious.
Yet somehow the movie fails to live up to the potential that their intriguing casting/pairing indicates.
Miss Pettigrew is a day-in-the-life period comedy — set in London in 1939, as the rumblings of war begin — based on the 1938 novel by Winifred Watson. Guinevere Pettigrew is a starched and frumpy governess who's been recently canned and who desperately, if she wants to eat, needs a job. She shows up at the door of liberated and ambitious American actress and singer Delysia Lafosse, and is immediately swept up in the chaotic atmosphere of Delysia's glamorous life.
Guinevere is immediately hired as her social secretary. Her essential job: to help with the juggling of three boyfriends — a pianist, a nightclub owner, and a West End producer. Meanwhile, there just might be a makeover in Miss Pettigrew's near future, as employer and employee become friends and exchange love-life advice.
While grandparents in attendance respond to the nostalgia, grandchildren will get to dip in two unfamiliar pools — World War II London and highly theatrical farce. Would that director Bharat Nalluri, with three thrillers on his resume, have a lighter touch. But he lets Adams overplay and McDormand underplay, and the script gives us two weak character arcs instead of one strong one.
There's nothing objectionable about Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day, but the impression it leaves lasts just a tad longer.
GP Rating System:
Three Grands = Bravo, don't miss it.
Two Grands = Good enough, don't dismiss it.
One Grand = Okay, even if we dis it.
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