TheRetroCritic

What makes a good biopic? An accurate cast? An involving story? Strong emotional conflicts? Yes, all of those, of course. But also a good biopic needs to tell us something new about the person being looked at. Otherwise, what are you left with besides people in funny disguises? Not much it seems, as My Week With Marilyn clearly demonstrates. From the offset it's clear that although there is a lot there story-wise to work with, the film will never even begin to scratch the surface of what's essentially the meat of the whole thing. Instead of focusing on Monroe's struggle to work in a film with Laurence Olivier, which could have had some dramatic potential, we instead follow the whole thing through the eyes of young Colin, some lucky-ass kid with no apparent personality, whose kinda-affair with the star is told through pretentious voice-overs, unlikely reconstructions and dialogs. All in all, we learn that Marilyn Monroe had trouble being recognized as a "rea