Review: Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day (2008) ***
Frances McDormand and Amy Adams in Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day
The Amy Adams cute factor is starting to wear out its welcome. She brings an overabundance of it to Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day, but it’s not enough to jumpstart this uneven comedy that begins in a screwball vein and then loses its nerve, turning semi-serious in the second half.
Though Adams makes the biggest splash as Delysia Lafosse, a bubbly American starlet-wannabe living in London in the 1930s, it’s Frances McDormand who plays the title character, a plain looking, middle-aged governess whose rigid sense of right and wrong puts her at odds with her employers, making it tough for her to hang on to a job. As the film begins, Miss Pettigrew’s employment agent has run out of patience with her and refuses to find her a new assignment. Desperate, Miss Pettigrew pretends to be the former social secretary to Carole Lombard in order to secure the same position with Miss Lafosse.
The assignment with the fast-living Miss Lafosse might be more than Miss Pettigrew bargained for, however. Trying to balance the scale between love and career, the starlet juggles Nick, a night club owner for whom she sings; Philip, the frisky young son of a theatre impresario who could get her a plum role on the stage; and Michael, the lowly piano player who truly loves her. It falls to sensible Miss Pettigrew to point her in the right direction and perhaps to find a love of her own. Unfortunately, Pettigrew’s own deception complicates matters and makes it difficult for her to always do what she knows is right for Delysia or for herself.
The cast is all enjoyable, though Adams is a little aggressively cute at times. McDormand is always a pleasure to watch and she doesn’t disappoint here. Ciarán Hinds who made his biggest US splash in the short-lived HBO series Rome and who seems to be turning up everywhere else in small parts lately (including Paul Thomas Anderson’s There Will Be Blood) has another smallish part as a successful lingerie designer about the same age as Miss Pettigrew. Though he makes the most of this shallowly sketched character who has lost sight of what’s truly important in life, it would’ve been nice to see him with something a bit more to chew on. Meanhwile, the actors who play the men in Delysia’s life don’t make much of a mark, though Lee Pace (TV’s Pushing Daisies) is soulful enough as the piano player and the other two at least stay out of the way.
Finally, the bouncy period jazz score by Paul Englishby kept things hopping along and the terrific art deco production design was nice to look at, but none of it was quite enough. Unfortunately, Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day didn’t turn out to be the movie I wanted it to be. I was looking for a kind of zany throwback to the old screwball comedies of the ’30s like something the real Carole Lombard would have been in. Pettigrew starts out in that direction, but ultimately changes course, ending up a fairly routine romantic comedy. When it should be effervescent, it comes off ordinary.
I suppose it’s unfair to judge a movie by what it’s not instead of what it is, but frankly there are enough ordinary romantic comedies in this world. The fact that Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day is slightly better than average is only small consolation. Enough consolation perhaps for fans of Ms. Adams and/or Ms. McDormand, but probably not enough to truly satisfy those looking for a real throwback to a more energetic era.
Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day. UK 2008. Directed by Bharat Nalluri. Written by Simon Beaufoy and David Magee from the novel by Winifred Watson. Cinematography by John DeBorman. Music composed by Paul Englishby. Production design by Sarah Greenwood. Starring Frances McDormand, Amy Adams, Ciarán Hinds, Shirley Henderson, Lee Pace, Tom Payne and Mark Strong. 1 hour 32 minutes. MPAA rated PG-13 for some partial nudity and innuendo. 3 stars (out of 5)
Filed under: Reviews
Tags: Amy Adams, Bharat Nalluri, Ciaran Hinds, Frances McDormand, Lee Pace, Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day
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I agree that Amy Adams needs to find a new schtick. I understand that she’s capitalizing on the persona that Hollywood’s interested in, but that doesn’t make it any easier to take. I’m sure she’ll stretch eventually.
When a person who likes the schtick (me) agrees an actor needs to find a new one, that’s a sign of trouble.
I say the same thing about Michael Cera. I’m not to that point yet with him, but I can see the point on the horizon.
Maybe Cera and Adams could get together and do an action movie or something in the vein of Bonnie and Clyde. That would be a departure for both of them.
You sounded far more negative on Pettigrew than me, Craig, but I can’t really argue against your points. Pretty fluffy movie in most respects, but watchable. I was hoping the script had a little more direction, but it seemed to take the easy way out of its dramatic aspects in the third act and gave up completely on the screwball antics from the first act.
Coulda been worse though. At least I left the theater with a smile on my face.
I adore Amy Adams, and loved her to bits in Junebug, hopefully she does find a new “schtick”, and I agree about Michael Cera, the dude annoys me just a little. They are both very talented, and I have no *doubt* they will mix it up a little in the near future. Amy Adams seem to be set for a good year, with Doubt and Sunshine Cleaning. Who knows?
I was not wowed by this films trailer, but I am a fan of both Adams and McDormand, so I will see it just to see what they come up with. I don’t expect fireworks or anything, but a good night out at least.
Sometimes my reviews come off more negative than they should. In this case, there were more negative things to say about it than positive, even if on balance the overall impression wasn’t that bad.
Sometimes I also get cranky when a movie is just “OK”. That’s what happened with Semi-Pro, a movie that didn’t annoy me, but got a bad rating and bad review.
If you love Adams and McDormand, you’ll definitely be entertained by Pettigrew, Nick.
I can’t help adding that Lee Pace is a huge positive for this film. Frances McDormand is reliably good (if not great) in everything and the exquisite fidelity to the period is blatantly obvious in the trailer.
But, not having seen him before, he was rather a fresh surprise. I just wish he had had more screen time.
That kind of charisma can’t be underrated. It’s exceedingly rare.
I short changed him a bit in the review, but he wasn’t given all that much to do.
I’ll probably see this because of Frances McDormand, although it’s because of her that I was hoping this movie would be better.
Amy Adams has a lot of talent, but when I saw the trailer for this it struck me that she was playing the “cute factor” again, which disappointed me. I’d really like to see a departure for her.
I like both McDormand and Adams (yes ENCHANTED worked for me and four-fifths of the nation’s critics) and the former was most fine here, but this is for the most part a forgettable film. My sentiments aren’t too far from Craig, who again wrote a most perceptive review, including his rightful acknowledgement of both the jazzy score by Paul Englishby and the art deco sets.
Well, Delysia is slightly more of a devil may care sexpot (on the surface, at least) as opposed to simply cute. Her character is not the wide eyed naif that Ms. Adams is so often cast as.
What’s interesting about this girl is that she APPEARS to be this femme fatale who has all this sweetness and light to her (similar to a titian haired Judy Holliday). But there’s a great deal of determination and focused thinking under all that frivolity. Delysia appears simple but she’s very complicated.
In spite of the fact that I don’t think it’s great (and yet I keep writing about it - WHY IS THAT?), you should check it out, Alison. I’d be interested to hear your impressions.
more humorous-then serious is pretty much the trend now/ good movie or bad …..
Maybe it’s an extreme reaction to 2007’s fare of darker, more realistic films.
ah… :)
I loved loved LOVED this movie. No apologies. ;-)
One of the reasons I thought I might take to Miss Pettigrew is that I imagined that it might be similar to Mrs. Henderson Presents. Mrs. Henderson was a film that I saw repeatedly and then I purchased on DVD. Apart from one or two people I know, everyone in my circle HATED it. But, out of the nominees for Best Actress that year, Dame Judi was my personal pick.
I thought that she and Bob Hoskins made a very dynamic pair. I loved the way she played her: as a saucy, gutsy old bird who refused to give up after her husband’s passing and decided to do something interesting and challenging in her twilight years. It was based on real events, after all. The WIndmill Theatre in London still exists to this day.
I liked the subversive elements. It must have been rather scandolous (not to say shocking and risque) to have scantily clad or nude women in nightclub performances back in the 40s. But she was determined to make the WIndmill a success and if that’s what it took…Wasn’t progressive enough that they had naked men in them.
But you can’t have everything.
I thought it was beautifully done. It was tremendously funny, the musical numbers were well staged and sung and the elements of war time tragedy were dealt with on a realistic level.
I see now, looking at Metacritic and RT, that it actually got some wonderful reviews. But Miss Pettigrew, for me at least, really suffers by comparison.
Miranda, you’re talking about Miss Pettigrew again!
I KNOW. I guess it’s all that Lee Pace intrigue…
I liked “Mrs. Henderson Presents” but thought in faltered near the end - I think “Miss Pettigrew” is overall a better film.
I preferred MRS. HENDERSON PRESENTS. Of course there was a spiffy rendition of perhaps the greatest popular song ever written, Jerome Kern’s “All The Things You Are” in it.
Well, I finally saw this with the girlfriend. She liked it a lot, and in many ways that’s all I could ask for. She found it rather funny, and it created the first 2008 movie waterworks from her, too.
It’s an almost always pleasant, though, for me, never quite relishable film, which, as Craig notes, starts off like a true zany, madcap screwball comedy of the 1930s and ends up being a somewhat middling romantic comedy about roues and girls. There are some inspired moments sprinkled in but they’re all so fugacious it leaves one a little underwhelmed in certain ways.
Nevertheless, I’m with joel: I left the theatre with a smile on my face. I liked it.
Fair to say Miss Pettigrew didn’t kill any bunnies, eh Alexander?
That the significant other loved it while it left you unscathed is gravy. Or frosting. Whichever you prefer.
nods emphatically
Mmm, hmm!
Ciaran Hinds has become one of my real favorite character actors. He lends authority to everything he touches, even if he’s there for only a brief moment.
I didn’t even know he existed until Rome, but I’m a fan.
Even in TWBB with a small, sparsely worded part, he had an impact.
He was good in Margot at the Wedding too, now that I think about it.
Yes, and he actually gave my favorite supporting performance of 2005 in Munich, which I think is his meatiest role, if not his biggest.
He was even pretty cool as the Russian president in Sum of All Fears.
I didn’t even realize he was in Munich too, which was a great performance. Wow, he’s doing some great work.
I wasn’t cognizant of him in Munich either, though it’s on my DVD list for the weekend.
Munich was so boring the first time I saw it, but upon revisting it, it was damn good indeed. Ciaran was in Munich? I didn’t even know who the guy was until TWBB. I guess I know now!