Saturday, March 08, 2008

The Day the Earth Stood Still

Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day is quite the just-dahling film about a governess who goes on yet another assignment, and sees her life change forever.

It is the eve of England’s becoming involved in World War II, and Miss Pettigrew (Frances McDormand), a middle-aged woman who is rough around the edges, finds herself once again unceremoniously dismissed from the job.

Without so much as severance pay, she realizes she must – for the very first time in 20 years – live for a day, if anything so she can eat.

While at an unfortunately familiar employment agency, where she is told in no uncertain terms that she unemployable, she does just this when she intercepts an assignment as the new social secretary for Delysia Lafosse (Amy Adams).

Arriving at a penthouse apartment for the interview, Miss Pettigrew is catapulted into the glamorous world and dizzying social whirl of the American entertainer.

Within minutes, she finds herself swept into a rather heady high-society milieu, and within hours, she finds herself living it up.

Taking her new role to heart, though, she strives to help her new friend Delysia navigate a career and a love life well-complicated by three different men: the one who can help make her career, the one who can keep her in the lap of luxury, and the one who loves her (Lee Pace of TV’s Pushing Daisies).

For her part, Miss Pettigrew herself is blushingly drawn to a gallant man tenuously engaged to haughty fashion maven who senses the social secretary may be out of her element.

Over the next 24 hours, Miss Pettigrew and Delysia will support and empower each other to discover their romantic destinies.

And for 92 minutes, the simply-stunning-to-look-at Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day will make you enjoy a charming time at the movie theater.

It’ll make you laugh, it’ll even make you cry weep perhaps, and it’ll remind you that you should never judge a book by its cover because you risk not learning about the wonders that lie within.

My Rating ***

Photo: Focus Features.

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