Sooooo... before I decided to make a brief return to political blogging - and doubled my highest one day total, got more attention than ever, dared to challenge the blog establishment, and be as gay as ever - I was planning to write a movie review. Or two. We'll see.
(I know... I won't begin to bust my reader numbers again until I write more about the Presidential race. It's okay. You can go visit Tom Watson, if you really need a fix...)
(Or better still, check out Field Negro on Shelby Steele.)
Anyhoo, my birthday movie was so nice, I saw it twice in one week - once for me and Jennifer, once for me and my Mom (on her birthday). And i highly recommend it.
Miss Pettigrew Lives For A Day is a miracle - a film that almost seems to come wrapped in a time capsule from 1938, colorized from its original black and white, full of witty lines and sparkling performances, none more 
glittering than Frances McDormand in the title role. More accurately, like a number of recent films, it bridges the moment between the World Wars, usually in England, where a generation untouched by war is about to come of age, and a generation recovering from one war looks nervously towards another one.
Ostensibly, Miss Pettigrew is a frothy screwball 24 hour affair: Guinevere Pettigrew is fired from her latest in a series of Governess assignments, having yet again alienated the lady of the house. Broke, desperate, destitute, Pettigrew filches the card of Delysia LaFosse, a cabaret singer in search of support, when turned out of her agency's offices. Bogarting her way into Delysa's apartment, she is stunned to discover that LaFosse isn't looking for a Governess, but a "Social Secretary," mostly the latest in a string of rich-girl accessories Delysia is flling her life with, like the overdone digs she occupies as the mistress of nightclub owner and reputed gangster.
Delysia supplements that affair with two others - Philip, a callow young aristocrat dabbling in producing musical theater, and Michael, her pianist, with whom she shares probably the strongest bond. Michael, however is threatening to depart over Delysia's use of the casting couch to get Phil to cast her in his new show. Meanwhile Nick, the gangster, buzzes around, demanding the attention he expects from the girl living in his luxury flat.
While Miss Pettigrew, a minister's daughter, finds herself appalled, she's also drawn to Delysia's delightful, appealing helplessness. And so she takes on the mission of helping Delysia keep her wild life in some sort of order. This leads to a transformation for Miss Pettigrew as well; she goes from middle aged frump, to glamorous middle aged matron, with the help of Edythe, a boutique owner with romance problems of her own, - as she two times her older, lingerie designing boyfriend, Joe.
Ah, how I feel I can't do this fizzy mixture quite the justice it deserves.
Miss Pettigrew, adapted from a novel by Winifred Watson, zips along briskly, as breathless as the lives of the young, fast crowd that Guinevere sees, and disapproves of, all around her. At the same time, she finds rapport with lingerie man Joe, who, like her, comes from the older generation that survived the Great War, and as things come to a head in Nick's nightclub, everyone is reminded that the threat of war is very real.
As I said, McDormand shines in this role. I'm not one - though my Mom is - who fell is love with McDormand in Fargo; I liked it well enough, but like most Coen movies, I felt it was condescending and too chilly to really be enjoyable. But since Laurel Canyon, where she played a free spirited music producer and mother, I've realized 
that she's an actress of amazing range; her uncompromising performance in Friends With Money helped distinguish that film as well. Here, like Annette Bening in the similarly timed (and themed) Being Julia, McDormand has a great part for a woman of a certain age, and makes the most of it. Her best moments are the quet ons where Guinevere contemplates the prospects of her worsening prospects and the fact that life may have, indeed passed her by. The moment, with Joe, when she relaxes into his arms and dances, is a ray of sunshine.
Indeed, the whole cast in first rate. As Joe, Ciaran Hinds is as good as he's ever been; and as Delysia's men, Lee Pace (as Michael), Tom Payne (as Phil), and Mark Strong (as Nick) make an impressive trio of leading men in waiting - especially Pace, who comes off as a less brooding, more accessible Clive Owen. As well, Shirley Henderson, a wonderful character actress, makes a fine impression in her moments as Edythe, as soignee as any thirties mannequin. If I had a quibble, it's with the nagging, eternal seeming sense that Amy Adams has not quite hit her stride yet. Her Delysia LaFosse is every bit the center of attention she needs to be; and yet Adams, doing her best breathy Marilyn Monroe imitation, never makes the proceedings quite her own.
It's a minor quibble - mostly I'd love to have a sense of Adams in her own right, and I don't yet. But there's time for that. And as Miss Pettigrew learns, there's always time to find your best second chance.
Director Bharat Nalluri hasn't had a lot of opportunities up to now, but as with his work on HBO's Tsunami: The Aftermath where he pulled remarkable performances out of highly capable actors, with MIss Pettigrew he shows an impressive sense for handling big talents. As well, he captures an air of menace and uncertainty about the pre-War moment that colors the proceedings, taking just the right amount of edge off of what could be highly silly and pointless. As a companion to Stephen Fry's Bright Young Things, Miss Pettigrew Lives For A Day offers a nice bookend to the era of champagne, jazz and bootleg gin, just as things start to turn deadly serious. It's a reminder that they truly don't make them like they used to... they sometimes make them better.
Comments