| this week's TRIBUNE review : 'Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day' [6/10] |
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| Friday, 15 August 2008 | |
 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day UK/US 2008 Starring : Frances McDormand, Amy Adams Director : Bharat Nalluri ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ "I wish the Japanese had waited six months": so said British novelist Winifred Watson of Pearl Harbor, the attack which propelled the USA into World War 2 and - among myriad more serious consequences - derailed Hollywood's plans to film her novel Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day. More than six decades on, the book has finally made it to the big screen in this frothy but entertaining little confection, a gently naughty period-piece aimed squarely at the "mature" audiences who made Stephen Frears' Mrs Henderson Presents (2005) a modest success. It's handled with competence and a suitably light touch by director Nalluri - who seems to have learned much from the deceptively "silly" 30s/40s comedies by the likes of Mitchell Leisen and Ernst Lubitsch. Though Indian-born, Nalluri was raised and educated in Newcastle - where, as it happens, Watson lived her whole life. Having stopped writing novels in 1943, she died in 2004, having enjoyed a belated return to the literary limelight when Pettigrew was republished four years earlier. That rediscovery led directly to this adaptation by David Magee and Simon Beaufoy, Oscar-nominees for Finding Neverland and The Full Monty respectively. The scriptwriters are unlikely to trouble the Academy with this genial but somewhat slim tale, in which downtrodden spinster-governess Guinevere Pettigrew (McDormand) makes an unlikely foray into London's glamorous theatreworld demi-monde after accidentally becoming social-secretary to a scheming but ditzy American actress, Delysia Lafosse (Adams). The pair - Delysia's Yankee ebullience contrasting with ever-so-English Guinvere's emotional reserve and down-to-earth common-sense - make for an engaging duo as they navigate their way through the more bohemian strata of high society, an opulent, decadent environment whose social whirl is, if anything, increasing as war-clouds darkly gather. As in last year's Enchanted, Adams finds extra dimensions in unpromising-looking material, exuding an old-fashioned star-quality and a coquettish bounciness that's crucial in keeping the ambitious Delysia on the right side of likeable. As her songwriter beau Michael, Lee Pace (from TV's Pushing Daisies and upcoming fantasia The Fall) combines matinee-idol handsomeness with an offbeat charisma - if there's any justice, both Adams and Pace should become household names sooner rather than later. The three American leads don't have it all their own way, however: Kincardine's own Shirley Henderson is on prime scene-stealing form as acerbically world-weary fashionista Edythe, nailing the glossy looks and vocal inflections of late-30s London to a nicety.  Neil Young 5th August, 2008 written for the current issue of Tribune magazine  MISS PETTIGREW LIVES FOR A DAY : [6/10] : UK 2008 : Bharat NALLURI : 92m (BBFC) : seen 7th June, Empire cinema, Rubery Great Park, Birmingham : press show (CinemaDays event) |
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