My week with Marilyn

How did I engage with the character Marilyn in My week with Marilyn?

When you first see Marilyn in the film your first impression is that she is just a Hollywood girl that doesn't really know what she is doing and just wants to be famous and have a bit of fun. When you see her on the first read through for the set in the film you see her struggling to read her lines and has to get Paula, her acting coach to read them to her. This suggests that she is illiterate and that maybe she can't read. The fact she never told anyone about this shows that maybe she is embarrassed that she can't do something so easy as to read a script, or maybe she was just worried that people would make fun of her if she told them that she couldn't read. This makes you feel sympathy for her because she is obviously frustrated and embarrassed at herself for not being able to do something so easy that everyone else around her can do, which causes the people around her to get annoyed as they think she is deliberately wasting time.

Another thing you see in the film that makes you think she doesn't care much is the fact that she keeps arriving late to set and forgetting her lines. This makes you feel that she isn't bothered about the film and makes you think that she feels she is so important that it doesn't matter that she is holding up production because she is the obvious star of the show. Though during this you also see how upset she gets every time she gets it wrong and how she really beats herself up about it every time it happens. You can see in her eyes how devastated she gets when she messes up and she sees everyone looking at her with that same exhausted expression. This again makes you feel sorry for her but at the same time wonder how she managed to become such an amazing actor when she finds it so hard to read the scripts. How did she manage to come this far when she relies on someone else to help her understand the script?

When you see Marilyn first get off the plane with her third husband it makes you wonder if she has any concept of love considering she has already had two failed marriages and is now on her third. At first glance the new couple seem happy and content but as you get more and more into the film you start to see that their marriage isn't as perfect as people think it is. You see in one scene her crying on the floor clutching some notes in her hands and trying to stay as far away as possible from her husband. You find out that he had written the notes and that they were basically making fun her. This makes you understand that maybe there is more to her than just fame. You can see that she has struggles of her own from this scene and also later on when you see her take too many sleeping pills and become quite delirious. It shows how she seems to be fighting battles like depression and anxiety on her own with no support, not even from her husband. At one point she says ‘all people ever see is Marilyn Monroe. As soon as they realise I’m not her they run.’ This shows that people don’t care or even want to know about her problems, they only want to know about Marilyn Monroe. This makes you feel sympathy for her as you can tell she is having a tough time both during the production of this film and outside of it, and no one seems to want to help her except for Collin.

Though continuing on with love she does seem to like to flirt and mess about with any boy that will come close enough to her. You can see from first sight that Collin is mesmerised by Marilyn and she seems to use this to her advantage. She soon makes a friend of him and uses him as a distraction from everything that is going on around her. She becomes more confident during production as Collin tells her that she is amazing and she believes him. Although this seems good as the film is finally starting to get back on track, many people are cautious about how close she is getting to Collin. At one point you see someone come up to Collin and say ‘that’s what she does, she breaks hearts. She’ll break yours.’ He warns Collin that she isn’t good for him; this gives you the impression that maybe she isn’t that sweet girl from Hollywood after all but it also shows how she does go after many boys considering this character then later says ‘that’s what she did with me.’ You also start to see her advances on Collin especially when they go skinny dipping and afterwards she kisses him. This makes you understand why she can’t keep a relationship going for very long considering the amount of people she messes about with. You do see later on though that she only ever means for them to be affairs and never anything more when she tells Collin to ‘just forget’ about her, after he’s said ‘You could quit this. Forget Marilyn Monroe. Forget Hollywood. Let it all go. Just let it go’ This shows how ruthless she can be at braking people’s heart but also how she won’t leave her fame for anyone, not even someone she truly loved ‘I couldn’t just give it up.’ It shows us how her work means more to her than a happy relationship and nothing would make her give up acting.