My Week with Marilyn
The Weinstein Company | Release Date: November 23, 2011 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
65
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 38 Critic Reviews
Positive:
29
Mixed:
7
Negative:
2
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleNov 22, 2011
Michelle Williams doesn't just survive. Called upon to glow, she glows. Her performance doesn't solve all the riddles of that personality; none could, and it's for the best that Williams doesn't try. Read full review
100
ObserverRex ReedNov 22, 2011
What an extraordinary thrill to leave a movie exhilarated instead of drained, sated instead of empty, rejuvenated instead of depressed. It's a magical experience. Read full review
88
St. Louis Post-DispatchJoe WilliamsNov 25, 2011
The performance is both an eerie imitation and a touching revelation. Oscar voters who overlooked Williams for her camouflage roles in "Brokeback Mountain," "Wendy and Lucy" and "Blue Valentine" should now throw diamonds at her feet. Read full review
88
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertNov 22, 2011
The movie seems to be a fairly accurate re-creation of the making of a film at Pinewood Studios at that time. It hardly matters. What happens during the famous week hardly matters. What matters is the performance by Michelle Williams. Read full review
83
Tampa Bay TimesSteve PersallDec 26, 2011
This is a slight movie, but it's Williams' all the way (possibly to an Oscar nod) while the rest of the cast supports her well. Read full review
80
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzNov 22, 2011
Her (Williams) performance is so engaging and complete, it's worth all the other shortcomings. Read full review
80
New York Daily NewsJoe NeumaierNov 22, 2011
When Marilyn Monroe appears, things stop. She is, as portrayed by Michelle Williams, a strange and beautiful alien: Unpredictable, odd, magnetic. Read full review
80
The New YorkerDavid DenbyNov 21, 2011
It's an expertly made, intentionally minor movie, though when Monroe, doping herself with everything available, lies in bed, confused and hapless, there are depressing intimations of the end to come. Read full review
75
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Rick GroenNov 30, 2011
The acting is superb, the settings are beautifully recreated, the dialogue crackles with occasional wit, but where's the juice? Although lovely to gaze upon, the whole thing feels a bit precious and porcelain, more teapot than sexpot. Read full review
75
New York PostLou LumenickNov 23, 2011
Brilliantly playing doomed '50s sex bomb Marilyn Monroe, Michelle Williams gets under the skin of the troubled yet vulnerable icon in a way no one else ever has. Read full review
75
Christian Science MonitorPeter RainerNov 23, 2011
Branagh is marvelous at conveying his exasperation. His conceit is that Olivier offstage acted the same as Olivier onstage – as if all of life was a vast playlet. For someone as thoroughly actorly as Olivier, this is probably no exaggeration. I would like to think that the great man himself would have smiled at Branagh's rollicking rendition of tantrums. Read full review
75
MovielineStephanie ZacharekNov 23, 2011
One thing My Week with Marilyn does get right is that women were as enchanted by her as the men were, if perhaps in a different way. Read full review
75
USA TodayClaudia PuigNov 22, 2011
Disappearing into the role of the troubled actress, Williams' portrayal captures the star's breathy voice and distinctive mannerisms, while delving a few notches deeper. Read full review
75
Orlando SentinelRoger MooreNov 21, 2011
Branagh and Williams are worth the price of admission, the former "wunderkind" of British stage and screen having a go at the pretentious, plummy Olivier. Read full review
75
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliNov 21, 2011
The unpretentious, easy-to-digest style and short running length (a shade over 90 minutes), when coupled with strong acting (especially on Williams' part), make My Week with Marilyn a pleasant end-of-the-year diversion. Read full review
75
Rolling StonePeter TraversNov 21, 2011
The luminous Michelle Williams goes bone-deep here. Monroe's beauty was one of a kind. No one, not even Williams, can act it. What Williams does, with fierce artistry and feeling, is illuminate Monroe's insights and insecurities about herself at the height of her fame. Read full review
75
Miami HeraldRene RodriguezOct 19, 2011
One of the chief pleasures of My Week with Marilyn - which should not be approached as anything other than fluffy entertainment - is watching Williams bring to life Monroe's inner demons and her movie-star allure with equal aplomb. By the time the film's book-ending closing musical number comes around (That Old Black Magic), the illusion is astounding and complete. Read full review
70
SalonAndrew O'HehirNov 23, 2011
My Week With Marilyn is the kind of shtick-laden movie in the British TV mode that delivers all its laughs, and all its grand, declamatory moments, right on schedule. I'm delighted to recommend it, as long as you know what you're in for: "The King's Speech" has the subtlety of Chekhov in comparison. Read full review
70
Los Angeles TimesBetsy SharkeyNov 23, 2011
It's lush and vibrant when Williams is onscreen, mostly fussy British discontent when she's not. Read full review
70
TimeMary PolsNov 23, 2011
Williams locates a central truth, the contradictory allure of this utterly impossible woman - mercurial, vain, foolish, but also intelligent in some very primal way and achingly vulnerable. Read full review
70
NPRBob MondelloNov 23, 2011
The film rests firmly on the shoulders of its central icon, and Williams, though she doesn't really resemble Monroe in either voice or visage, is pretty splendid at conjuring her. Read full review
70
The Hollywood ReporterDavid RooneyOct 12, 2011
Williams gets us on intimate terms with one of Hollywood's most enduring and tragic icons. If much of what surrounds her in Simon Curtis' biographical drama is less nuanced, her work alone keeps the movie entertaining. Read full review
70
VarietyRonnie ScheibOct 12, 2011
To the extent that Michelle Williams' multilayered interpretation of Marilyn Monroe serves as its raison d'etre, My Week With Marilyn succeeds stunningly. Read full review
67
Entertainment WeeklyLisa SchwarzbaumNov 23, 2011
Michelle Williams plays Monroe, and she's a wonder. Working opposite a suitably florid Kenneth Branagh as that high thespian Sir Larry. Read full review
67
The A.V. ClubKeith PhippsNov 22, 2011
How could someone so frail and terrified at the mere thought of acting in front of the camera become the biggest movie star in the world? And how could someone so unknowable become so familiar? Then the film makes the mistake of trying to answer these questions. Read full review
63
Philadelphia InquirerCarrie RickeyNov 23, 2011
Williams never defaults to mimicry. Her Monroe doesn't have the breathless whisper and quivering lips/quivering hips quality of the Marilyn impersonators. Her Monroe is a lightbulb on a dimmer, suddenly bright, and just as suddenly, indistinct. Read full review
63
Washington PostMark JenkinsNov 22, 2011
At one moment, Marilyn turns to Colin and asks, "Shall I be her?" And, instantly, she is - effortlessly bewitching a crowd with movie-queen poses. If only the movie could turn it on so reliably, My Week with Marilyn might be profound rather than simply pleasant. Read full review
63
Boston GlobeTy BurrNov 22, 2011
The point of "My Week'' appears to be that Colin is the one person in Monroe's life who isn't using her, but if squeezing two books and a movie out of one brief encounter isn't exploitation, I don't know what is. Read full review
63
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsNov 22, 2011
Such stalwarts as Judi Dench, Julia Ormond, Toby Jones and Dominic Cooper spice things up as characters of various degrees of familiarity. Read full review
60
EmpireAngie ErrigoNov 23, 2011
At moments hilarious and others touching, it's a sweet, slight affair, more pretty pageant than pithy biographical drama. Expect awards nominations to stack up for Williams and Branagh. Read full review
60
Village VoiceKarina LongworthNov 22, 2011
You never forget that you're watching a talented living actress laboring to mimic a long-gone movie star who - on-screen, at least - never seemed to be acting at all. Read full review
50
Chicago ReaderJ.R. JonesNov 23, 2011
There's nothing here about Monroe that we haven't been told a thousand times already: she was sexy, she was troubled; she was warm, she was selfish; she took pills, she lit up the screen. Read full review
50
Austin ChronicleMarjorie BaumgartenNov 23, 2011
Thus, this indifferently shot film winds up being another in a long line of creative works by men that exploit the legacy of Marilyn Monroe for their own satisfaction and little public good. Read full review
50
The New York TimesManohla DargisNov 22, 2011
Ms. Williams tries her best, and sometimes that's almost enough. Read full review
40
Time OutKeith UhlichNov 22, 2011
Simon Curtis's watchably third-rate biopic doesn't try to sort out truth from fabrication; that would be like "teaching Urdu to a badger," as the short-tempered Olivier - played by a whole-hog-slicing Branagh - might say. Better to print the legend and be done with it. Read full review
40
Boxoffice MagazineVadim RizovOct 12, 2011
The results are perfunctory, lugubrious and historically questionable. Read full review
30
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternNov 28, 2011
When bad movies happen to good people, the first place to look for an explanation is the basic idea. That certainly applies to My Week With Marilyn, a dubious idea done in by Adrian Hodges's shallow script and Simon Curtis's clumsy direction. Read full review
25
Slant MagazineJaime N. ChristleyOct 12, 2011
Only the star performances in My Week with Marilyn, cartoonish as they are, make seeing the film worth the effort. Read full review
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