Okay

The movie is well made and the performance of Michelle Williams as Marilyn is pretty impressive. Its a decently entertaining movie.

This is a typical movie-by-numbers affair made insufferable for me by having to spend an hour and a half around a character who I just wanted to slap some sense into. I don't get the appeal of Monroe at all.

Lightweight and breezy, this film is easy to enjoy but it would have benefitted from either from more serious myth-making or more serious characterizations. Instead, it settles for a one-note characterization of Monroe which Michelle Williams fills in as best she can. She's the only serious thing about this movie.

Williams, Branagh as well as the rest of the cast are excellent, but the film itself is only mildly amusing. The story with its limited dramatic centerpoint has a feeling of a BBC mini-series blown-up to the screen.

Williams and Branagh are good. I appreciated that the script didn't include biopic checkpoints (childhood scenes and so on) but the plot we get instead isn't that great, either.

Michelle Williams turns in a superb performance

Had its weaknesses, but decent job by Michelle Williams. Wouldn't call it spot-on, but nice stuff. I mean, the story wasn't that rich, but it was just well done.

Michelle Williams was obviously an amazing Marilyn. Otherwise, this was pretty awful.

I didn't think a film about Marilyn could be so unsexy -- the typical british visual approach, with its insistent editing remarks, makes it informative, but distant. Some good acting from Michelle and Brannagh, a cold directing by Curtis -- he seems interested and bored at the same time: this only could've been released by the Weinstein Company. Harvey/Bob love cinema, as long as they can get at least some Oscar nominations and hundreds of million dollars with their feelings -- or films.

Great performances by Michelle Williams as Marilyn and Kenneth Branagh as Olivier. Worth checking out.

A movie about Marilyn Monroe, Laurence Olivier, Sybil Thorndike, Vivien Leigh, and Arthur Miller isn’t at all a bad idea, especially with such a great cast and production finesse. The mistake the filmmakers make is putting a nobody in the center. Who cares about his week with Marilyn? [Full Review]

Even if Michelle Williams is playing her heart out, the real Monroe is such a strong, overwhelming picture in the collective memory, that you can never watch this (sometimes pretty corny) movie, without getting out of this awareness. Short: it never catches you!

Very boring. Could not finish watching. Michelle Williams was great at acting like Marilyn Monroe but it was very difficult to see her as Marilyn Monroe. Overall a decent production with some great acting and a very boring story.

Michelle Williams is great in this film. Her performance is the main reason to watch because the script is average. Judi Dench is also excellent in a supporting role. I recommend this movie because of the performance by Williams.

Two very fine actors (Williams, Redmayne) who both deserve better than a self-serving biopic. Jesus Christ, leave the poor woman alone already.

Branagh's Olivier is a lot of fun, it's really a shame the story wasn't about him. We share his exasperation at Monroe's boring "Little girl lost"- routine, so when the second half of the film decides to focus on her akward relationship with an impressively boring young man things don't get more interesting, to say the least.

Williams gives her all but good acting alone is not enough to breathe soul into this Marilyn.

Surprise, i believe Marilyn was just this way.

Although the film itself feels kind of pointless, the two major roles (lovely Williams and brilliant Branagh) brought it to a new level.

Oh the boredom! Biopics are rarely engaging and this one is the worst I have seen. I don’t care much about Monroe, but there must be more interesting stories from her life than a week with an impressively bland teenager.

A fantastic telling of a not-that-interesting story. Michelle Williams is very good as Monroe. But overall somewhat forgettable...

I loved loved loved Michelle Williams, I loved Kenneth Branagh, I loved the screenplay... what a mesmerizing film. Remarkable attention to detail, great score (particularly "Marilyn's Theme" by Alexandre Desplat), and just overall a great, captivating movie. One of the best of 2011.

Williams' Monroe is so superb that I'm confident that in time to come, her portrayal will have fully eclipsed the real thing; This is how I'll remember Marilyn. The good kind of biopic, with the focus on a very short period of time, yet still fleshing out the entire character. Branagh is gold, and the overall atmosphere is just mesmerizing. Broke my heart, stitched it up and then broke it again. Spectacular - though admittedly moreso in some areas than other, it's easily one of the best of 2011.

It takes little more than a scene of 'My Week with Marilyn' for Williams to have you forgetting you're not watching the real thing. It's not so much an impression, but an embodiment of a character. It all rings true, never feeling as though it's just a representation of what she "might do", but who she is. Every character changes in Marilyn's presence. Her aura makes men and women alike act like lovesick teenagers. Everyone on-screen is enchanted by Marilyn. In the theater, it's by Williams.

Michelle Williams was great in this movie. Unfortunately she was playing as unlikeable a character as there is. The movie isn't good. In fact, it's repetitive, and was hardly a story worth telling.

Perfectly fine. Very forgettable. Don't regret seeing it. Will never see it again. Amusing while it lasted, and Judi Dench is always worth a watch, but you'll never hear of this past the awards season. Next!

In terms of story and structure, I feel like the movie deflates over the course of its runtime, starting at a brisk and entertaining clip and getting repetitive with Marilyn's freakouts by the time it enters its third act. But, that said, Michelle Williams is really, really, really, really good. Her best performance ever, in fact - she singlehandedly elevates the rest of the film.

Williams portrays Marilyn's innocence and fragility perfectly, and Branagh does a great job contrasting her quiet, hard-to-work-with demeanor as the engaging Olivier. It tells a wet-dream-story-turned-true from the perspective of a young film assistant at a time when Marilyn was near her peak in popularity. This in itself sounds like an incredible story, but the direction and telling of it was so modestly plain that it left me not caring.

Combining political sympathy and media ignorance, the filmmakers confuse Monroe's fame with her self -- a mistake Warhol's print should have discouraged, calling for a smarter response to Pop legends. In My Week With Marilyn, Williams' portrayal of Monroe as an extension of her screen roles cannot be trusted.

81.000

A fantastic performance by Michelle Williams rescues an otherwise middle-of-the-road biopic.

It doesn't deviate far from the run-of-the-mill clichés of the romance genre, even being genuinely cringeworthy at points, and eventually becomes an average romantic drama that just happens to involve Marilyn Monroe. Whilst there was plenty of missed opportunity for some exploration of character and psychological depth, Michelle Williams is so (literally) mesmerizing as Monroe that you simply can't help but be captivated when she's on screen, and that's what really matters.

My Week With Marilyn provides some excellent character stuff, but all too often gets lost in trying to determine what's real and what's a show and never really bothers to run with that concept, all too often getting mixed up in convoluted love stories and psychological cliches.

Michelle Williams is simply mesmerizing. I was absolutely enchanted when I saw her on the screen very first time just like I saw Monroe on tv performing with Jane Russell in Gentlemen Prefers Blondes. We don't know Monroe actually, but I'm sure she'd enjoy Williams' real, believable and natural performance also. Kenneth Branagh is also just delightful and captivating as Laurence Oliver. However at some parts they both suffer the lack of space script gave them. In general a good memoir though.

dans, michelle williams

"My Week with Marilyn is little more than Styrofoam packaging for a Michelle Williams Oscar campaign, all shrink-wrapped and ready to go." - Jaime N. Christley

Michelle Williams is pretty good here, but Kenneth Branagh steals the show as the man who's shadow he's been stuck in for a long time: Laurence Olivier. The third act is kind of lame. This is definitely on the King's Speech tip, but I don't think it'll be as dreadfully boring as that was if I ever decide to revisit it.

Interesting reviews, my fellow Critickers... Expecially some of you saying almost exactly what I said about 'THE QUEEN' those few years back. (CAMcleod) ...For me, Williams totally won me over! I came in with low expectations, and was delightfully surprised... Some added benefits was the attention to details in recreating the on-set atmosphere by all the Art Depts., and, an equally terrific portrayal of Olivier, by Kenneth Branaugh! Kudos!

I liked Eddie Redmayne's part but it was a bit difficult to see Michelle Williams as Marilyn Monroe. The story did not reach any levels it should. All good points of it went down because of lame output.

quite slow in the mid section but overall enjoyable; Michelle Williams is good as Marilyn Monroe but every second of the movie you feel that its "her" playing Monroe... I wish the movie had more of the "prince and the showgirl" so we could feel the great contrast of what she achieved in the original movie and the insecurities depicted in this one...

Wonderful evocation of the Olivier-Monroe pairing with Branagh and Williams equally capturing the elusive essences of their characters; it takes a lot of talent to convincingly capture such idiosyncratic originals as Monroe and Olivier to such a startling degree. Dench is terrific in support as Thorndike, and the film brilliantly captures the atmosphere of Pinewood in the 50s. Likely to appeal more depending on your relative interest in the period and people.