Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day.

"Brisk, peppy, light on its feet, and trying awfully hard to be reminiscent of a fast-talking Depression-era rags-to-riches comedy, Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day can be best described as inoffensive," writes Jeremiah Kipp in Slant. "But what saves the film from being disposable fluff is the casting of Frances McDormand as the prim, proper, middle-aged London governess of the title."

But for the New York Times' Stephen Holden, Amy Adams is the true star here: "The particular screwball screen magic Ms Adams commands in Miss Pettigrew, a weightless period fairy tale based on the novel by Winifred Watson, hasn't been this intense since the heyday of Jean Arthur."

Updated through 3/8.

"Adams is the sole reason to bother with this flimsy time-passer," agrees the AV Club's Scott Tobias.

Steve Dollar, writing in the New York Sun, likes both leads. Their "yin-and-yang chemistry gives this breathless contrivance its bubbly pep."

"Every once in a great while a film comes along that reminds you of the zany screwball comedies of yesteryear and the witty, rat-tat-tat dialogue of a long-abandoned way of writing," writes Brandon Fibbs at cinemattraction. "Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day is such a movie, a film of sparkling intelligence and incandescent humor that feels as if it was just yesterday plucked from a vault where it had mistakenly been shelved for the past 60 or so years."

For Salon's Stephanie Zacharek, this is "one of those rare cases where a filmmaker's good intentions, and the enthusiasm of his actors, are enough to fill in the cracks."

"If the same teams of tastemakers and demographic experts that design movies like Transformers and 300 to be sure-fire vehicles for 14-year-old boys were to come up with a must-see for women over the age of 50, the result might be Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day," suggests Alonso Duralde at MSNBC. "Alas, this grossly underserved segment of the moviegoing public deserves a stronger film than this flimsy, chaotic venture."

"[T]he movie puts more of a premium on being likable than hilarious," writes Nick Pinkerton at indieWIRE. "The most common reaction to it will be either 'Why do they even bother making that stuff?' or 'Well, that was sweet.' Neither view is without merit."

Godfrey Cheshire in the Independent Weekly: "I will admit I was bored. Out of my skull. Not every Brit chick flick makes me wish I was anywhere else. This one did."

"Bharat Nalluri directs with a light touch and a great eye for costumes and sets, which are gorgeous enough to make up for any contrivances in the plot," writes Carina Chocano in the Los Angeles Times. "It's pure romantic fantasy, and you won't believe it for a minute. But it's fun to watch Miss Pettigrew and Miss Lafosse live for a couple of hours."

In FilmInFocus, a bit of background from Priya Jain: "The story of Watson's novel is of the kind that's often described of as a fairy tale, but even though it began in 1938, it's a distinctly modern one about being resolutely one's own self, whatever that may be."

"Were Watson alive today, her comic verve would likely intimidate Diablo Cody," writes Ella Taylor in the Voice. "But what makes her novel a delight is its guilelessly homoerotic subtext. By downplaying that, the movie argues the case for Watson's innocent sensuality - and against its own worldly update."

Update, 3/8: "[Y]ou could easily be forgiven for mistaking this buoyantly bubbly treat as an adaptation of some lesser-known Noël Coward comedy from the same era," writes Joe Leydon in the Houston Chronicle.

"Pettigrew, while brisk, is also pretty flat," writes Premiere's Glenn Kenny. "It revels, alas, in the over-determined nature that's infected such fare like a virus; the ending in particular overplays its hand so spectacularly as to be laughable in all the wrong ways."

"Miss Pettigrew Lives For a Day doesn't tred any new ground and it's completely absurdist fantasy in that 'happily ever after' way of separating true love clearly from all pretenders, but it has its moments," writes Nathaniel Rogers at Zoom In Online.

Posted by dwhudson at March 7, 2008 11:51 AM