We all know her story — who she is, what she does, how she lived, we know her inside and out, at all sides and at all angles. And yet, there’s so much we don’t know. We take a blast to the past and take a deeper look at what it feels like to be a real star. Is it just me or are we seriously re-living the 50s when the wardrobe in My Week With Marilyn looks like another day on Queen West? How did director Simon Curtis know we’d be into this little anecdote? Get ready, this movie will tickle your taste for an endearing historical drama, and more impressively, all done without any nasty violence, coarse language or nudity.

We’re not just going back to a different time period. We’re going back to a familiar point in life, where we’re incredibly impressionable, we’re eager to please and we’re fascinated by anything we can’t understand. Eddie Redmayne can’t be a better fit for the young Colin Clark with his boyish good looks and adorable innocence as the little gofer boy for Sir Laurence Olivier’s production of The Prince and the Showgirl. You can’t help connecting to this poor boy’s heartbreak as he instantly forgets about the wardrobe girl to pursue a long-shot with Marilyn.

You don’t even need sex to get seduced here. As soon as Williams says, “Should I be her?” and strikes a pose, you’re sold. We don’t have to highlight her body, show any scenes of love-making or even talk dirty to describe her desirability among men and women all around. Whatever side you’re on, whether you like her or you don’t, you can’t help getting drawn in with this obsession to know where she is, what she’s doing, how she’s feeling, and who she’s feeling.

Michelle Williams makes a fantastic Marilyn Monroe, down to the shimmies and that delightful laugh. She completely embodies the fragile, poor mis-understood girl, offering a complexity behind her character that is fiercely masked behind her frivolous attitude. There’s an equal amount of crying and laughing, but the Williams’ best moments are during her blank stares that leave you stupidly entranced. Unlike other darker interpretations of a falling star, this film leaves all the action behind and focuses instead on Marilyn’s reactions with each instance of her life. You get an idea about her, but it’s not laid out in cement. You can’t help yearning for more of her to light up the screen.

[star v=4]