Actuakers One of my all time favorites.

Protraph Lack of good storyline.

Taraparain Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.

Humbersi The first must-see film of the year.

george-purdy I agree with most of the positive reviews, but I think more credit should be given to the director, Bharat Nalluri. His directing of Amy Adams and Miss Pettigrew is truly phenomenal. You can achieve perfect timing on the stage, but he makes it even better on film. Were there lots of retakes? When Miss Pettigrew tentatively suggests that Amy just not let the third boyfriend into the flat, and Amy says "I can't do that" "Why" "It's his flat", the perfect timing greatly increases the impact. The true author of a film is usually the director, who bears the ultimate responsibility for its artistic merit. Besides his great timing, Bharat Nalluri, like Hitchcock, ensures that the audience knows exactly what is going on, so that dramatic moments don't lose their impact.

SnoopyStyle War is coming to London. Miss Guinevere Pettigrew (Frances McDormand) gets fired from another job. She loses her suitcase to Michael (Lee Pace) coming out of prison. She loses her soup kitchen food when she spots Edythe (Shirley Henderson) with a man. Her employment agency won't give her another job and she steals a job with American actress Delysia Lafosse (Amy Adams). Delysia is sleeping with producer's son Phil Goldman to get a staring role in a play. Her sugar daddy is possessive nightclub owner Nick Calderelli but her true love is pianist Michael Pardue, the guy coming out of prison who was imprisoned partly due to Delysia. At a party, Guinevere catches the eye of designer Joe Blomfield (Ciarán Hinds). His fiancée Edythe had cheated on him. Delysia has to make a choice with Charlotte Warren (Christina Cole) just as desperate to get her acting role.McDormand and Adams are perfect together. This is jammed packed old style light comedy. There isn't great drama or high tension. Adams' light frothy performance contrast perfectly with McDormand's tough exterior. They have a great chemistry and works as a great team. The only problem is that the movie does try too hard at having fun.

Steven Torrey MISS PETTIGREW LIVES FOR A DAY is about transformation. Delysia LaFosse (Amy Adams) is in reality Sarah Grubb from the Pittsburg Steal worker's Grubb. Miss Pettigrew (Frances McDormand, social secretary, is in reality homeless tramp. And Joe Blumfield (Claran Hinds) would prefer to be what he really is: a sock designer rather than designer of lingerie. Sound familiar? A STAR IS BORN (1954 with James Mason and Judy Garland) is about Esther Blodgett being transformed into Vicki Lester. And that movie itself is about Frances Gumm being transformed into Judy Garland. MY FAIR LADY, Liza Doolittle transformed into a lady who speaks the King's English and not Cockney. It is about OEDIPUS--a book about adoption--as Betty Jean Lifton explores in her autobiography TWICE BORN: MEMOIRS OF AN ADOPTED DAUGHTER.And the central question to these transformations: how different would I be without the act that transformed me? Suppose Miss Pettigrew married her beau in 1914 and lived in that cottage with garden? Instead her beau dies in the mud of France in the Great War. And 25 years later, on the eve of WW II, she is a homeless tramp, not living in a cottage with a garden. Miss Pettigrew wants to save Delysia LaFosse from making a mistake that will transform her life into something unsatisfactory if she were to marry the wrong man, of the three men pursuing her. Only one of these men accept her for what and who she is: Sarah Grubb.(That is the core of the movie--Miss Pettigrew wanting to save Delysia from her own fate of an ill-advised marriage. But marrying the wrong person is not the same as losing a person to the fate of war. Here the logic fails. Unless, Miss Pettigrew was more in love with the idea of marrying a soldier off to war, then actually in love with the soldier--which is what the story line ends up silently implying.)This core of the movie--transformation--motivates the movie, motivates the characters. And it's why the audience responds as it does, because there is recognition that is a theme central to the human condition. It posits that transformation changes ineluctably and not in a direction which we would have chosen of our own volition. And the question that all people ask (all adoptees ask): how exactly would my life have been different,if I had not suffered this trauma, If I had not been adopted? And as always, the core to these transformations is about the seedy, the unpleasant, the trauma: whether it's war, or whether it's a sexual escapade that should not have occurred.In the end: Miss Lafosse chooses the right person, Joe Blumfield has found the person to be his wife in Miss Pettigrew, the person whom he has been looking for all his life.It's a charming movie with a serious core. Not a screwball comedy. Though it has hilarious moments. Miss Pettigrew lives for day so that she might live for an eternity,

Robert In 1939, when the book "Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day" was written, such films were cranked out by the gross. At the very best, they were directed by Howard Hawks, and they flowed along with easy wit and little time for the audience to question any plot weaknesses. At the worst, they were trite potboilers. Alas, this film apes the latter. It trots out every single "screwball romantic comedy" trope from "Dinner at Eight" to "Pillow Talk" without bringing a single new thing to the mix. So much for the plot.Amy Adams plays the equivalent of "Lorelei Lee" (and pastiches Carole Lombard and every other screwball blonde in cinematic history) turned up to eleven. She's madcap! She's ditzy! She just can't say no! Frances McDormand is a capable actress, but she attempts to conceal her faux British accent behind chewing her words, as if she's afraid to be heard clearly. So much for the two leads.With questionable acting, 2-dimensional characters and the flimsiest of all possible plots, the only thing that can save the film would be very deft direction. Alas, even that it lacks. It's always an indication of the weakness of a film when the director throws in "mood-setting music" in every scene. Such is the case here. Need the audience to get excited? Blare the rinky-dink jazz! Need them to try to care about this romance or that? Cue the sobbing strings! Heavy-handed? That doesn't even begin to describe it.There is only one group of people who could find this film appealing: women with a taste for "retro" styling whose cinematic standards have consistently been lowered to the basement floor. Anyone who appreciates sparkling, original romantic comedies will simply find it woefully lacking in every regard.