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Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day
Reviewed by Theo Michelfeld
Posted: March 18, 2008

Films paying tribute to their predecessors—we may see it all too often these days, but like any tool in any given craft, the homage is only genuinely tiresome when it's propping up a greater lack of substance. In the proper hands, those self-concious cinematic double-quotes evoke a lore and mystique that ignites our immortal love of the movies. Indeed, an homage sometimes seems the only course of action. I need only point to my previous review for The Bank Job, an excellent film tarnished only by its incongruously modern presentation of events that took place in 1971. Sure they got the clothes and cars and sets right. But filmmaking is about camera work and editing too. It's about rhythm, and not just a filmmaker's personal rhythm, but the correct rhythm for the tale being told.

Well the rhythms of the new film Miss Pettigrew Lives for Day may prove a shock to the system for some modern or casual viewers. In fact, as the movie got going I found myself a bit concerned for actors set adrift with mildly farcical material and apparently no editor to hide behind. Then I started to settle into the film's defiantly old-school sensibilities, and I grew to love it. Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day takes place in the late 1930s and is charmingly constructed not only to look, but to feel, like a film from that era. Some scenes go on seemingly for fifteen minutes or more, complete with thoughtful pauses and other un-spliced character interactions. There is plenty of big-band swing music, but frequently it is being played live on the set as part of the story; meanwhile, the narrative counts on dialogue, and not timeless music, to move things along. The actors, who are often filmed at full length, are required to fill up the frame by traversing the sets, using props, and projecting their voices—exactly the techniques stage actors brought to the screen in cinema's early years. Even the story's impossible coincidences and utter predictability have an air of deliberateness to them; there is something nostalgically un-stressful about this film's conflicts and resolutions. It all comes together as a brave and probably easily-misunderstood film that, in my estimation, is clever as heck.

Frances McDormand stars as Guinevere Pettigrew, a British governess whose dignity, integrity, and forthrightness have cost her several jobs and have left her homeless and starving. Desperate for work, she steals a job assignment from her employment agency, and suddenly she finds herself the personal assitant of a flakey socialite named Delysia Lafosse. In the course of one day, Miss Pettigrew becomes central to one love triangle and peripheral to another love pentangle, all the while slowly rescuing Delysia from an empty life of shallow ambition. McDormand is brilliant, as usual, bringing to life a character who is almost fatally undermined by her own honorable qualities. Shirley Henderson is hilarious as the miserable, conniving villainess who sees an instant threat in Miss Pettigrew. And Amy Adams is ridiculously charming as Delysia Lafosse, a persona built entirely on willfully blind buoyancy, who both fears and welcomes Miss Pettigrew's sober wisdom on matters of career and love. These three women are wonderful onscreen together.

The material is considerably lighter-weight than that of the creepingly melancholy Breakfast at Tiffany's, with which this film shares a theme or two. On the other hand, some gravity is provided by Ciaran Hinds, who plays a wealthy lingerie designer who shares Miss Pettigrew's maturity level. Along with McDormand, he helps anchor down the general farcicalness with welcome and genuinely touching moments of tenderness.

I suspect Miss Pettigrew will not be for everybody. At the same time, I can't recommend this movie highly enough. Go with its flow, set back the time machine on your filmgoing expectations, and enjoy the ride, folks. It turns out they do make 'em like this anymore.

Copyright © 2008 Theo Michelfeld