Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Small Movie Review

Hi all. My name is Shelby and I have been invited to share my thoughts with you. I had originally planned for my first small review to be a review of the Small Reviews blog (as some one who doesn't live in NYC, it can get a little tiresome reading about how great it is). However, I decided to stick with something I am more confident in, and that is a movie review. So without further ado, I give you my review:

Tonight I decided to pop one of the movies I had received from Netflix into my DVD player. Usually the little red envelopes sit the for weeks, or even months, without being touched, but I tonight I decided that watching a movie was a far superior idea to revising my resumé. As it was, the choices were between Amélie and Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day. As I am an admirer of Amy Adams, Miss Pettigrew it was.

Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day opens up on our dowdy title character, played by Francis McDormand, losing the latest in a string of unsuccessful and colorful nanny jobs. Poor, homeless, desperate, and slightly frazzled (or should I say frizzled), Miss Pettigrew fortuitously finds herself posing as a "social secretary" to an American actress living in London. Delysia (Amy Adams) seems to have everything Miss Pettigrew does not; youth, talent, and three men chasing after her. As the day wares on, Delysia must decide whether to follow her heart or her pocketbook and Miss Pettigrew must decide whether to cater to her own morality or to the happiness of her new employer.

I had my doubts about how the movie would play out toward the beginning. The meeting between Delysia and Pettigrew seems vaguely familiar, with Delysia pleading Pettigrew for help to remove her young lover from her bedroom before her older benefactor returns. It reminds one of something that would play out in Jeeves and Wooster. However as the plot glides on and the two women slip more firmly into their roles, I realized that this movie wouldn't all be fast talking, near misses, and British propriety all around.

Set in the backdrop of a London on the verge of entering WWII, the costumes and music really are what bring this movie together, rather than Adams' bubbliness an McDormand's fierce looks. Each setting, be it Delysia's apartment or a lingerie show in a London hotel, transports the viewer to a time when their grandparents were swinging around the dance floor and air raids were a reality. The movie acknowledges London's position at the time and brings an element of believability to the otherwise fantastic storyline.

Overall, I did enjoy this movie. It's cute and light and makes you somewhat long for a time when women's hair was larger than their heels. Whether you relate more to Delysia or Miss Pettigrew, you'll walk away from this movie feeling like you too can bag the man or woman of your dreams. Or maybe that's just the Merlot talking.


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