|
Miss Pettigrew Lives For a Day |
|
March 7, 2008 | According to the credits, Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day is based on a well-regarded, recently rediscovered 1938 novel by British author Winifred Watson. But you could easily be forgiven for mistaking this buoyantly bubbly treat as an adaptation of some lesser-known Noel Coward comedy from the same era. Much like many of Coward’s more delightful concoctions, Miss Pettigrew traipses merrily among the romantic entanglements of London sophisticates who might seem insufferably silly if they weren’t, periodically, so painfully self-aware. There is an abundance of snappy patter – quick quips, rude insults, double entendres and the like – and an overall sense that life consists almost entirely of cocktail parties, illicit liaisons, lunchtime gossiping and dusk-to-dawn carousing. Here and there – again, like Coward’s plays – the movie allows a character to fleetingly consider the harsh realities that can, and almost certainly will, bring the party to a close. (Note how two characters warily and wearily acknowledge the approach of another World War.) But the melancholy counterpoint actually serves to make the funny stuff even funnier, even as it underscores the tiniest hint of desperate longing beneath the madcap capering. Under normal circumstances, the middle-aged, chronically starchy Miss Guinevere Pettigrew (Frances McDormand of Fargo fame) isn’t given to excessive frivolity. She’s a vicar’s daughter, she would have you know, and she might be able to hold on to a job as a governess in late ‘30s London if parents weren’t so frightfully permissive. But in the wake of yet another dismissal, she’s desperate enough to bluff her way into employment as a “social secretary” for Delysia Lafosse (Amy Adams of Junebug and Enchanted), a glamorous young American singer-actress with grand ambitions, few inhibitions and a spectacularly untidy love life. Miss Pettigrew arrives at Delysia’s fabulously appointed art deco flat just in time to help her new employer chase away an overnight guest – Phil (Tom Payne), a budding theatrical impresario who may cast Delysia in a West End musical – just before the arrival of Nick (Mark Strong), an intimidating nightclub owner who considers Delysia his private property (and, not incidentally, is the real owner of the nifty apartment in which she lives). But wait, there’s more: Later in the day, Michael (Lee Pace) -- a handsome pianist who once performed with, and still pines for, Delysia – arrives with a tempting offer to resume their personal and professional partnership. Not surprisingly, Miss Pettigrew disapproves of all this licentious behavior. Very much against her better judgment, however, she agrees to help Delysia get through an extremely busy day of lunching, dishing, preening and scheming. In return, the younger woman persuades Miss Pettigrew to undergo an extreme makeover – brighter clothing, a more becoming coiffure, the works -- that attracts the attention of Joe (Ciaran Hinds), a courtly fashion designer who instantly spots the social secretary as a possible soul mate. Working from an unabashedly contrived but splendidly clever script by David Magee and Simon Beaufoy, director Bharat Nalluri keeps the mood light, the pace brisk and the wordplay pleasurable. Indeed Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day is so witty and zippy that it often recalls the breakneck screwball comedies of Howard Hawks (especially Bringing Up Baby and His Girl Friday). The wonderfully dry McDormand and the totally yummy Adams are perfectly matched as polar opposites who wind up bringing out the best in each other. And the perfect-pitch supporting players – including Shirley Henderson as a snippy fashion maven with her own designs on the courtly Joe – likely would have impressed Noel Coward himself with their talents to amuse. | |