Mr. Nalluri lives for a film
If you read the reviews of British director Bharat Nalluri’s Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day, you might think it a mannered, stilted WWII-era comedy. But it’s actually a light, modern comedy which pays stylistic homage to old-school Hollywood. And it’s quite good, a rom-com written with adults in mind. Frances McDormand (married in real life to Joel Coen) plays a homeless woman who becomes social secretary to an It Girl (Amy Adams) for a day. It’s a thin premise fleshed out by great actors wielding zingers.
The best romantic comedies captures deep truths in their fictions. The class issue is there, of course. But the deeper issues are about generation and emotional maturity. McDormand tells her love interest Ciarán Hinds that the pretty young things are ‘too young to remember the last war,’ WWI. A couple of beats later, his girltoy walks in and offhandedly refers to what’s blotting out the London sky: ‘I’ve never seen bombers like those before.’
The flick is a gloss on the Spencer Tracy - Audrey Hepburn genre, which is to say it’s as stylized as a Broadway play. But some of its lines are cutting. ‘You people are just playing at love,’ says McDormand at a key moment, and she plays it with anguish. The line doesn’t just pit butterflies against the substantive, it pokes fun at the weakness of most Hollywood rom-com scripts.
At one point, Adams decides her social secretary is dressed too dowdily to tote around town and takes her to a salon for a makeover. The undernourished McDormand pulls the cucumber slices from her eyes and noshes. It’s an obvious gag, but it reminded me instantly of a similar scene in Loins of Punjab, only without the black-Punjabi rapper couple.
Adams’ breathy Marilyn Monroe act has always grated on me. Reviewers are constantly going on about her ‘charm that emanates like a perfume‘ and her personality ‘lighting up the screen.’ I’m more of the McDormand/Hinds school of thought. Hinds calls it the solidity and comfort of gentlemen’s socks. That’s a bit too jejune, but give me less Adams, more Rachel Weisz any day.
Here’s the trailer:
on Wednesday, March 26th, 2008, 11:32 am in Film, Video clips › 
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Well… she really did that - lit up the screen - in “June bug” .Heartily recommended for Amy Adams’ performance if you haven’t seen it.
I look forward to seeing “Miss Pettigrew..”
That is one of my favorite eras, stylistically. Okay, slightly earlier than that, but I lump them together. It’s all old black and white movies to me! The deco exhibit they did at the MFA (Boston) a couple years ago was a delight - the clothing and jewerly and assorted artifacts. The famed deco furniture get up seemed drab to me.
Amy Adams was wonderful in Junebug. That’s a film with textures - the lazy, hazy sunlight on grass, and buzzing bees, and the seventies era one-story houses . When I watched Junebug, I realized I had never really seen a neighborhood like the ones I knew back in square state on film. Just caricatures of such neighborhoods.
Okay, I will see the above described movie. Thanks, Manish!
(Also, that the actor in the first pic was in a version of Jane Eyre I liked very much. That I know this is very sad.)
Agree with manish…I saw Amy Adams enchanted..she is all jejune..just right for childish innocent woman fairy tale women roles..doesnot look like she is good for real tough women roles, though I didnot see any of her other movies..
hmm..women make over movies..Iam sure all my girlfriends who keep talking about my makeover would love to show me this movie…
I was just thinking today that it is long since we girls saw a perfect chikflick movie..
I saw the promos somewhere, looks like a perfect chikflick..though I would want to see the Definetely may be movie first..thanks Manish..
I’d watch anything with Ciaran Hinds in it; he’s brilliant. He was so good in Persuasion, and Prime Suspect and recently in Munich, but I got a reall thrill in January, seeing him up close, devilish in a fedora on Christmas Eve in a Dublin suburb, in The Seafarer on Broadway.
I’m with Filmiholic, Ciaran Hinds is usually a big sell for me. I sometimes find Amy Adams grating, but she was well cast in Junebug and she takes all her energy over the top in Enchanted, which is just what her role called for.
I’ve been meaning to see Miss Pettigrew, because I always find Frances McDormand to be fascinating to watch, even in bad films. I thought Friends With Money was an uneven, disappointing movie, but I still couldn’t stop myself from watching McDormand. Thanks to your review, I’ll be sure to check this one out sooner than later.
Have you seen the show Pushing Daisies? Since the lead actor for that show is in Pettigrew, I figured I’d use it as an opportunity to get 2 reviews for the price of 1, in true desi style. ;)
I will take one order of Naomi Watts, thankyouverymuch.
Yay for the big man, the golden Hinds. He was great in There Will Be Blood too.
Brimful: Have you seen the show Pushing Daisies?
Sadly, I have not.
Rahul: I will take one order of Naomi Watts
As my cafe says, would you like that with whipped cream?