“Delightful and Believable”

“Hotshots” looks at a movie!

My Week with Marilyn tells the true story of what must have been every young man’s dream back in the 1950s: spend time on a movie set with Marilyn Monroe and get paid to take care of all her needs and wants.

The time is 1956, the 23-year-old man is Colin Clark, and the movie is The Prince and the Showgirl, which was being made in England.

Marilyn is played wonderfully by Michelle Williams, Kenneth Branagh plays Laurence Olivier, and, yes, that is Emma Watson playing Lucy, a wardrobe assistant working on the movie.

Judi Dench plays an actress in the movie being made, which was based on a play called The Sleeping Prince, and one could ask, “Is Judi Dench in every movie these days?”

Colin says that he will do anything to be in the film business, and he remarks, “Everyone remembers their first job. This is the story of mine.”

Through family connections, Colin is able to get a job as a gofer on the production and is even given the title of Third Assistant Director, a position that nowadays is called Second Second Assistant Director, so that people will stop referring to the person by a rude word that rhymes with “third.”

Marilyn is having personal problems in her life, she is terribly insecure, and she arrives with her new husband, Arthur Miller, along with a large number of handlers who like to keep Marilyn medicated because it is easier to keep their cash cow under control that way.

After Marilyn keeps everyone waiting on the set and slowing down the production, Olivier tells Colin to “Be a good boy and keep an eye on her.”

Then after Arthur Miller leaves and goes back to the United States, Marilyn starts noticing Colin and calls him at all hours when she just wants a friend or to have someone near whom she believes she can trust and is on her side in the conflict that is going on.

Marilyn claims that she just wants to be loved like a regular girl, but Olivier believes that she knows exactly what she is doing, and now Colin is in a very fortunate and privileged position that gets him in trouble with her handlers and other members of the crew.

My Week with Marilyn is delightful and believable.

I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”