Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day Release Date: March 7, 2008 Starring: Amy Adams, Frances McDormand, Ciaran Hinds, Lee Pace, Shirley Henderson, Mark Strong Directed by: Bharat Nalluri
The dogs of war are all but howling outside of London's gate, but poor Miss Pettigrew (McDormand) has got other worries. The prim, frumpy governess' strict ways have gotten her canned from yet another job, a live-in one. She waits for morning at the soup kitchen by Victoria Station, having filched the business card of a potential employer from the desk of the referring agent who made it very clear that no employment prospects would be made available to her.
As the movie's title more than suggests, that morning is the start of a tumultuous day. Pettigrew finds herself in the service of aspiring actress Delysia Lafosse (Adams), who has her eject a young, randy, would-be West End producer from her upstairs bedroom, since Nick (Strong), the sugar daddy who owns the luxurious apartment, is on his way up. Soon a third man demanding Delysia's affections, humble pianist Michael (Pace), will show up. As he's poor, of course he's Delysia's true love. Will the newly made-over Miss Pettigrew, now Delysia's "social secretary," show the errant showgirl the true path of love, and improve her station a little along the way?
Of course she will.
With weightless period comedies such as these, getting to the inevitable happy end is supposed to be at least half the fun, and given this terrific cast — rounded out by Hinds' lingerie designer with a curious eye for Lafosse's new hire, and Henderson as his venal fiancée — it should be. But Pettigrew, while brisk, is also pretty flat. It revels, alas, in the over-determined nature that's infected such fare like a virus; the ending in particular overplays its hand so spectacularly as to be laughable in all the wrong ways.
Adams doesn't do much more than portray a more sexually promiscuous variant on the perky young thang she's played in her last 75 or so films. While I don't want to come off like one of those critics whose drool response is triggered by the unanticipated baring of female flesh in a film, I cannot say I was displeased that this particular variant of the standard Adams role entailed the actress running around in little more than a towel for about a third of the picture. And although McDormand's performance is consistently focused — one would expect no less from the actress — the movie itself can't settle on whether Miss Pettigrew is Mary Poppins minus the sugar spoonful or just plain Carrie Nation. By the time it decides, having spooned out some bromides on the impermanence of youth and the sad recurrence of wars, many will have ceased to be concerned with the matter.
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