Frances McDormand and Amy Adams Sparkle in a Feel-Good Movie
Set in 1939 London, Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day (2008) is a lively, satisfying movie that is an homage to Hollywood comedies of the late 1930s and early '40s. It's a frothy concoction that offers contrived comic complications leading to a happy ending, while giving us eye-catching costumes and sets to look at and enjoyable swing music to listen to. However, the humor is slightly more risqué than the censors allowed in the old days. Also, Miss Pettigrew has an appealing sense of nostalgia — we're never in 1939; instead, we're always looking back from a safe distance.
The story — an adult fable — takes place in a single day. Guinevere Pettigrew (Frances McDormand) is a homeless, unemployed middle-aged governess who manages to get a job as the social secretary of Delysia Lafosse (Amy Adams), a young cabaret singer struggling to make her way up the showbiz ladder. As Delysia juggles three lovers, the straitlaced Miss Pettigrew gets a makeover and begins to enjoy life. The movie is basically a pleasant, lightweight entertainment, but it gains poignancy from the viewers' knowledge that the events occur on the brink of World War II.
Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day is a small-scale film that follows a predictable narrative arc, but it is nonetheless fun to watch because of the marvelous performances. The two leading ladies, McDormand and Adams, are delightful, and the way their characters change each other's lives gives the movie its emotional resonance. McDormand's love interest is played by Ciaran Hinds, while Adams' is portrayed by Lee Pace (of TV's Pushing Daisies).
DVD Bonus Materials
The Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day DVD contains about 35 minutes of video bonus materials, the most interesting of which is arguably the eight-minute featurette "Miss Pettigrew's Long Trip to Hollywood." This tells how a 1938 novel by Winifred Watson was finally made into a movie 70 years later. There's also a serviceable 18-minute making-of plus a collection of deleted scenes that have a total runtime of about nine minutes.
In addition, the DVD provides an informative feature-length audio commentary by director Bharat Nalluri, who takes the listener behind the scenes and shares his thinking about making the movie. He mentions that the film's story is set a year or so later than the novel's, and none of the movie's foreshadowing of World War II was present in the book. He says that even when Miss Pettigrew is forced to eat at a Depression-era soup kitchen, he wanted the scene to have a magical element. Since the film is dialogue-driven, Nalluri chose to use all short takes to mirror the rapidity of the dialogue. Although he points out a small amount of location shooting, the movie was shot primarily at Ealing Studios. About 60 percent of the film takes place inside Delysia's apartment, and Nalluri acknowledges it was a challenge to try to maintain visual interest through camera movement.
DVD Details
Below I have listed all the details for the DVD containing Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day.
Release Date: August 19, 2008
Feature Film Runtime: 1 hour 32 minutes
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for Some Partial Nudity and Innuendo
Widescreen (2.35:1) on Side A and Full-Screen (1.33:1) on Side B, Color
English 5.1 Dolby Digital
French 5.1 Dolby Digital
English Captions for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing
Spanish Subtitles
French Subtitles
Audio Commentary by Director Bharat Nalluri
Deleted Scenes (9 min.)
Miss Pettigrew's Long Trip to Hollywood (8 min.)
Making an Unforgettable Day (18 min.)
