Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day
I left the cinema after this movie with a smile on my face, but later struggled to remember what film it was that had had this pleasant effect on me. Miss Pettigrew (Frances McDormand) is a down-on-her luck governess who catapults herself out of the soup kitchen and into the salons of the hoity-toity.
She finagles her way into the position of social secretary to starlet Delysia Lafosse (Amy Adams), an occupation for which she has no experience or inclination. Although the hyperactive Miss Lafosse failed to endear herself to me, she does to the prim Miss Pettigrew, who throws herself wholesale into straightening out the ingénue’s chaotic love life.
However charming Miss Pettigrew’s machinations are, I suspect I would have forgotten the film even as I stepped out into the foyer were it not for McDormand’s ample skills as an actor. There is at least some interesting commentary on British class divides on the eve of World War II. — Zinaid Meeran
You Don’t Mess with the Zohan
Comedy in which Adam Sandler plays a superhuman Israeli combatant who dreams of a less violent life. He fakes his own death and steals off to America to chase his dream of being a hairstylist. It’s typical Sandler fare: silly, adolescent (though definitely not suited for the younger ones) and over the top. His films are a guilty pleasure of mine and, as such films go, this one manages to steal a few laughs. — Warren Foster