Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day is a comedy starring Frances McDormand, Ciaran Hinds, Amy Adams, Mark Strong, Shirley Henderson, Lee Pace, and Tom Payne.
Guinevere Pettigrew (McDormand) is a rather conservative woman working as a governess in pre-WWII England. After getting fired (again) she lies her way into a job for an American socialite named Delysia Lafosse (Adams), who, it turns out, needs a social secretary, not a nanny. Initially horrified to find Lafosse in bed with one man (Payne) whom she's using to get a part in a West End show, involved with her boss at the club where she sings (Strong), and in love with the pianist at said club (Pace), Miss Pettigrew gets swept up in it all. Plus she really needs the work; she's in the soup lines without it.
Over the course of the day, Miss Pettigrew and Ms. Lafosse wend their way through the worlds of theater, jazz clubs, and women's fashion. During the latter they meet Joe Blomfield (Hinds), an older gent engaged to a manipulative young women (Henderson) who attempts to blackmail Pettigrew into helping her lie to Joe about her affair. At the end of the day, though, Lafosse realizes her love for Michael the pianist, Phil the theater impresario winds up snogging with the other contender for the role, Nick the club owner winds up knocked on his ass. It's a rom-com.
The poignant bits of the movie, though, are all McDormand's, and the hands-down best line in the whole thing is when during a party a bunch of bombers fly overhead. The younger folks (including Lafosse and her friends) all cheer, while Pettigrew says sadly to Blomfield (also old enough to remember the Great War), "They don't remember, do they?" It's such a sad, beautiful moment between them, and it absolutely sets them up to fall in love by the end of the movie.
Speaking of that, the movie really ends with Blomield finding Pettigrew, now poor again, sleeping in a train station, and tells her that he's in love with her and basically proposing on the spot. I have some niggling issues with the fact that she's utterly destitute and at that point he has all the power, but he doesn't come to save her and she doesn't respond with gratitude or desperation; the interplay between them seems very much as equals. I'm actually more annoyed that the whole scene seems a bit rushed.
In general, though, it's a very sweet rom-com, with great performances from McDormand and Adams. Blomfield is dignified and charming, Strong is slimy as fuck, and Henderson took me forever to place as the actress who playing Moaning Myrtle in the Harry Potter movies.
My Grade: B+
Rewatch value: Low
Next up: Mission Impossible
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