I have an admission to make: I fell for it. I saw the ads and trailers and clips and assumed this was what was being advertised, an enjoyable enough "romp" as the quotewhores put it. How foolish of me. The poster makes it look like Mrs. Henderson Presents 2. Yes, it's set in England, and yes it's from the time period just prior to WWII (whereas Henderson occurs during the war), but there's no good reason to dismiss this movie. I'm not saying that Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day really rocks the foundation of cinema, but it's a very enjoyable movie that is true to its source material and not enough people saw it. I hope DVD rectifies that.
Miss Pettigrew opened on just over 500 screens on March 7th of this year, never expanding further. Mind you, this is before Memorial Day. There were no Iron Men, Hulks, Dark Knights or anything of the kind around. We were in Drillbit Taylor country at that point. If this had opened wider and had a better trailer, I'm convinced it would've done great, partly thanks to word of mouth. Not just gangs of girls would've gone, but husbands who'd subjected their spouses to Drillbit and the like would be brought along as well.
So...Pettigrew and Lafosse go to a women's strip club? Having seen the film, I know that isn't the case. Why was this choice made, did the studio think they'd trick horny teen boys into the 500 not-easily-found screens they had this on for a couple weeks? Look, the poster itself isn't horrible (could've been full of floating heads), just misleading along the Henderson train of thought above. The trailers I saw on TV were finished as soon as they'd begun. Terribly unfair to very enjoyable film.
Pettigrew follows the always sublime Frances McDormand in the title role along with Amy Adams as Delysia Lafosse, a singer/actress as they go through a day in Lafosse's world. Supporting appearances by Ciaran Hines, Lee Pace, and Shirley Henderson (known to most as "moaning Myrtle" from the Harry potter films, but much more of an actress than just that role).
It's truly wonderful to see Adams popping up in more films thanks to the broad success of Enchanted. She does a lovely rendition of the actor who gets caught up with who she thinks she's supposed to be in public rather than who she is on the inside. What would be considered scandalous themes and ideas regarding "women thinking" in the 30's or 40's are still relevant especially today as it seems the only way for Republicans to consider a woman worthy or successful is for them to be just as unconcerned with the world and wars at hand as they were 60 years ago, but "salt of the earth enough" to shoot guns and hate endangered species. All righty, political screed over, back to the film.
The movie itself has nearly been made for decades since the book's initial publication in 1938, with author Winifred Watson selling the film rights something like two or three times (intentionally or not, no one is sure). It was originally set to star Bettie Burke (Glinda the Good Witch from The Wizard of Oz) and would have been a musical. There's some singing in this one, but it certainly isn't a musical. I kind of wonder what that would have been like...knowing current Broadway producers, that could happen before long.
It's out on DVD now (came out a couple weeks ago so quietly I didn't even notice), so give it a rent or blind-buy it as a gift for yourself or someone you know. Bharat Nalluri is a talented filmmaker (not everyone does "period films" well). I gather it's available as a digital download for purchase in a number of places, but this one's worth it for the short featurette and commentary at least, on top of the Deleted Scenes, a couple of which I really would have liked in the film and may have been Producer cuts for sake of shaving runtime rather than Production cuts, if you catch my drift.
You have to flip the disc for the second featurette, over to the Pan and Scam side. Also interesting to note is that the Widescreen side previews Hamlet 2 and Baby Mama and the other features a promo for the Broadway premiere of Billy Elliott: The Musical along with Leatherheads and some Barbie thing or another. How unintentionally hilarious.