Katy Murphy Movies
- 2008
- PG13
- Add Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day to QueueAdd Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day to top of Queue
A late-'30s-era London governess hired to work in the home of a high-profile nightclub chanteuse gets a taste of the good life when she is assigned the task of sorting out the singer's many unseemly affairs in a period comedy starring Frances McDormand and adapted from the novel by Winifred Watson. Unfairly and unceremoniously dismissed from her latest position without so much as a penny of severance pay, Miss Guinevere Pettigrew (McDormand) realizes that in order to stay financially afloat she'll need to find a new job fast. Though she has worn out her welcome at the unemployment office due to her propensity to loose jobs, she's determined to seize the day and keep an open mind. Before she's booted from the office, she takes note of a job opening that is a little outside of her experience, but decides to pursue it, pretending she is the prospective employee the office was planning to recommend. Becoming a "social secretary" may not be exactly what Miss Pettigrew had in mind when the time came to seek out a new job, yet she hopes that her enthusiasm will offset her inexperience and throws caution to the wind.
Upon arriving at the penthouse of up-and-coming American entertainer Delysia Lafosse (Amy Adams), the unassuming Miss Pettigrew becomes instantly swept up in the high-society milieu. But serving as social secretary to one of the busiest women in the city is no easy task, and before the day is over, Miss Pettigrew and her new charge will both learn a thing or two about life and love. Now, as Miss Pettigrew helps Delysia make informed career decisions and choose between one of three potential suitors, her own attraction to a handsome clothing designer named Joe (Ciarán Hands) could prove her undoing. Joe's current fiancée, Edythe (Shirley Henderson), is an insolent fashion maven with little patience for those she deems incompetent or unworthy of the spotlight, and she currently has her targets locked onto a certain social secretary who doesn't yet grasp the complex social mechanisms of the high-society lifestyle. Simon Beaufoy and David Magee co-author a screenplay directed by Bharat Nalluri. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi
Upon arriving at the penthouse of up-and-coming American entertainer Delysia Lafosse (Amy Adams), the unassuming Miss Pettigrew becomes instantly swept up in the high-society milieu. But serving as social secretary to one of the busiest women in the city is no easy task, and before the day is over, Miss Pettigrew and her new charge will both learn a thing or two about life and love. Now, as Miss Pettigrew helps Delysia make informed career decisions and choose between one of three potential suitors, her own attraction to a handsome clothing designer named Joe (Ciarán Hands) could prove her undoing. Joe's current fiancée, Edythe (Shirley Henderson), is an insolent fashion maven with little patience for those she deems incompetent or unworthy of the spotlight, and she currently has her targets locked onto a certain social secretary who doesn't yet grasp the complex social mechanisms of the high-society lifestyle. Simon Beaufoy and David Magee co-author a screenplay directed by Bharat Nalluri. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi
- Starring:
- Frances McDormand, Amy Adams, (more)
Produced and aired in 2006, the final, four-hour installment of the 15-year Granada/WGBH television series Prime Suspect -- entitled Prime Suspect: The Final Act -- nominally continues to follow author Linda La Plante's literary character, Detective Superintendent Jane Tennison (Helen Mirren), but segues dramatically away from Tennison's casework and toward incidents and developments from her private life. This alteration reshapes Prime Suspect, in its concluding installment, from a detective mystery program centered around hot-button social issues (child molestation, bigotry, gender bias) into more of a domestic drama with an incidental detective subplot. The tale opens with Tennison poised on the edge of retirement, with only a few weeks of work ahead of her. In her off time, she struggles to care for her dying father (Frank Finlay), and battles her own periodic blackouts, brought on by encroaching alcoholism. The central crime plot involves Tennison's attempts to pinpoint those responsible for the sudden death of a pregnant teenage schoolgirl and bring the unsavory characters to swift justice. As she investigates, she comes into increasing contact with the girl's family, and begins to perceive the broken relationship that existed between the victim and her deeply dysfunctional father (Gary Lewis); she also befriends Penny, the best friend of the deceased -- a relationship that imparts her with much-needed insight into the case at hand. ~ Nathan Southern, Rovi
- Starring:
- Helen Mirren, Stephen Tompkinson, (more)
