The News Tribune
by Soren Anderson
March 9, 2008
Set in the 1930s, “Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day” is an old-fashioned picture, and that’s a good thing.
That’s because “Miss Pettigrew” is a movie very much in the spirit of a ’30s Hollywood high-society comedy: fast-paced, high-spirited, sharply written and oozing with glamour. It might not be quite in the league of classics like “Bringing Up Baby” or “The Thin Man” – it’s a little too formulaic and predictable – but director Bharat Nalluri gives it a snap and confidence that bring those kinds of pictures to mind.
Based on a 1938 novel by British writer Winifred Watson (David Magee and Simon Beaufoy wrote the adaptation), “Miss Pettigrew” maneuvers a newly fired nanny from a soup kitchen in Depression-era London into a job as social secretary to a pretty flibbertigibbet actress with expensive tastes in clothes and men. (The latter keep her well-supplied with the former.)
It has elements of Cinderella in the sense that the title character, played by Frances McDormand, is dowdy and downtrodden at the start then over the course of a single eventful day blossoms into, if not exactly a beauty, certainly a woman of poise and subtle wit. There’s even a princely figure waiting to sweep her off her feet.
And there’s a large component of farce here, too. That’s particularly true early on when the prim, proper and somewhat nonplussed Miss Pettigrew must speedily conceal evidence of her rich employer’s sexual shenanigans and wrangle the beauty’s three boyfriends so that none encounters any of the others as they pop in and out of her luxury apartment. (The costumes and production design expertly evoke the glamour of bygone Hollywood.)
Amy Adams plays Miss Pettigrew’s employer, an ambitious young woman who intends to sleep her way into the lead role of a glitzy new play by bedding the producer. With her wide eyes, big smile and chirpy voice, the character, deliciously named Delysia Lafosse, is like a strawberry blond version of Marilyn Monroe’s vampy innocent in “The Seven Year Itch.”
You can also think of her as a randier edition of Adams’ “Enchanted” character, Princess Giselle, and really, Adams ought to think about mixing it up a bit when it comes to selecting roles. She’s got the pert and perky market cornered and is just this close to becoming stereotyped.
But here again, as in “Enchanted,” Adams plays this breathless ditz right up to the border of caricature while somehow managing to suggest something deeper and more genuine lurking beneath the bubbleheadedness. And only someone as grounded and perceptive as Miss Pettigrew can see past the froth to the substance. The actresses play off one another with great skill.
The time is 1939, with the Depression still in full force, Hitler in the headlines and war just over the horizon. The mood in Delysia’s world of champagne and society swells is “live it up, enjoy yourself, it’s later than you think,” which lends an air of desperate gaiety to proceedings.
This is a world with blinders on, but the noise of formations of bombers overhead flying prewar exercises is dislodging the blinders despite the best efforts of the party-hearty crowd to keep the real world from intruding.
Miss Pettigrew is old enough to remember the last time the world went to war, and so she views the heedless escapades of Delysia’s crowd with a sorrowing wistfulness. She knows the end of the party is in sight. McDormand captures that rueful quality with discreet meticulousness.
While Delysia is juggling boyfriends, the callow producer (Tom Payne), a smooth and shady nightclub owner (Mark Strong) and a goodhearted cocktail pianist who truly loves her (Lee Pace), Miss Pettigrew is surprised to find herself being courted gently and ever so carefully by a wealthy designer of high-end ladies undergarments.
Irish character actor Ciaran Hinds plays him with a wonderful combination of warmth and quiet authority. He and McDormand are two thoroughbreds, their chemistry is profound and their scenes together are a total joy to watch.
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