Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day: Movie Review (Text and Video)

Directed by Bharat Nalluri, written by David Magee and Simon Beaufoy, 92 minutes, rated PG-13.

The first third of “Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day” is so irrepressible, there’s no keeping the damn thing down. The direction, staging and acting are so high strung, there’s every indication that its main character, a failed governess named Guinevere Pettigrew (Frances McDormand), might be found dead from exhaustion by the end of the it--right along with the rest of the characters.

Pressed to capture the tone of screwball farce, everyone involved goes out of their way to do so, straining the movie’s seams in ways that can be off-putting in the face of such excess.

And then there’s a shift.

Working from a screenplay David Magee and Simon Beaufoy based on Winifred Watson’s 1938 novel, director Bharat Nalluri eventually allows his romantic comedy to settle into itself. The over-the-top energy he favors at the start is dropped several notches, where it achieves a less stagy feel. Characters come into their own. The film never shakes the formula it courts, but it still becomes more enjoyable as it unfolds.

Set on the eve of war in 1939 London, the film follows Pettigrew, a disheveled, out-of-work mess whose luck appears to have run dry until the day she meets Delysia Lafosse (Amy Adams), an American singer and wannabe actress who is busy juggling the affections of three men in an attempt to climb to the top.

First up is Phil (Tom Payne), a wealthy young producer whose father owns the theater at which Delysia is trying to land her first major acting gig. Second is rich Nick (Mark Strong), who lends Delysia his swank apartment while he’s away on business and who owns the cabaret at which Delysia performs with her boyfriend, Michael (Lee Pace), a struggling pianist whose love for Delysia in genuine. Trouble is, Delysia is such a cheerful little climber, she doesn’t believe that love is what she needs at this point in her life. Certainly, it isn’t as important as the critical and financial success she craves.

Enter Miss Pettigrew, a moral force who knew love once and lost it. She’s so desperate for a job, she wedges herself into Delysia’s life as her social secretary and then becomes her unwitting guide to what matters in life. Over the course of one day, the two change each other profoundly, with Pettigrew gently guiding Delysia toward the one man who should matter most in her life, while Delysia ushers Pettigrew into another world--one in which high fashion matters and dramatic makeovers can take place.

It certainly does for Pettigrew, who is scrubbed from head to toe and catches the eye of lingerie designer Joe (Ciaran Hinds), whose relationship with snarky Edythe (Shirley Henderson) is on the rocks. Since Edythe isn’t about to lose Joe, and particularly because she knows a few secrets about Pettigrew, complications thicken for all as the movie mounts a climax that’s at once airy and serious.

The air belongs to Adams, whose Delysia bounces through the movie until the ramifications of her selfish behavior stop her cold. Adams is very good here, somehow making Delysia likable in spite of her willingness to repeatedly hurt Michael.

As for McDormand, it’s through her nuanced performance that Nalluri strikes his best observations about the meaning of love and friendship in middle-age. In the frenetic early scenes, when she’s asked to be a vehicle for comedic farce, she gives it her best shot and is as good as she can be given the weaker material. But it’s at the movie’s end, when she’s called upon to act and touch you with the truth, that she is at her best, stepping outside the film’s limitations and creating a better movie in the process.

Grade: B-