SRF zwei: My Week With Ma­ri­lyn

23-year-old Colin Clark (Eddie Redmayne) comes from a well-off English family, his father is a famous art historian, his brother the pride of the family - but he hasn't achieved anything of his own yet, because his only passion is the cinema. In the summer of 1956, he decides to stand on his own two feet and try his luck in London. There, he sits in the anteroom of the Laurence Olivier Productions until the legendary Sir Olivier (Kenneth Branagh) and his wife personally offer him a job on the set of the film "The Prince and the Showgirl". As a production assistant, his first task is to find suitable accommodation for Marilyn Monroe (Michelle Williams). The star, whom Colin adores, is not only coming to London to work, Monroe also wants to spend her honeymoon here with her husband, the writer Arthur Miller (Dougray Scott).

The mood on set is irritable from the start, even explosive, because the diva's moods and her unreliability repeatedly test Olivier's patience. Colin becomes the mediator between the two difficult personalities. And he soon looks after Marilyn outside of the set as well. When her husband returns to the USA after a week, he wants to ensure that her time in the city is as pleasant as possible. Far away from the hustle and bustle, the two spend hours together. Marilyn, who is extremely mentally unstable during this time, can be completely carefree in Colin's presence and really blossoms at his side. For the inexperienced young man, the weeks with the star become the highlight of his life.

The screenplay for the film is based on the memoirs of the same name by filmmaker Colin Clark, who actually worked on Olivier's film as an assistant director and is said to have become friends with Monroe. A week was missing from the first version of his autobiography. The story of this week was later published under the title "My Week With Marilyn".

With her portrayal, Michelle Williams manages to make the most famous Hollywood diva, who has been elevated to a mere symbol in the public eye over the years, into a person of flesh and blood without taking away her aura. Williams was honored with the award for Best Actress at the 2012 Golden Globes for her performance and received an Oscar nomination, while Kenneth Branagh received a nomination for Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of the contentious British Shakespearean actor Sir Laurence Olivier.