Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day

Frances McDormand plays Guinevere Pettigrew, a governess who can't quite manage the children under her care and supervision for multiple families, thus finds herself unemployed. She goes back to the employment agency and discovers that she has been sacked from future placement in other people's homes/families, but upon over-hearing an opportunity arise from the socialite/actress Delysia Lafosse (Amy Adams), she mis-represents herself to Delysia to gain employment (and deflects any future placement of another governess for Delysia's situation). As it turns out, Pettigrew goes a whirlwind of a day as Delysia's social secretary, and finds herself offering insight into the affairs of the heart, all the while not quite believing the romantic foolishness that goes on amongst Delysia's circle of acquaintances, or the eternal dilemna of following one's heart for either love, money or ambition.

The film's direction has a very stagey feel to it, like a play given the theatrical treatment. I enjoyed the performances of both McDormand (contemplative, subdued, and earnest when required) and Adams (aching with social butterfly disease, but maintaining an internal sweetness and charm that's undeniable), but the screenplay is a little on the predictable side, and Delysia's predicament is far too clumsily written in the first act, but their interplay at least lends a true sense of personal attachment between Pettigrew and Delysia in their day together on the cusp of WWII in London.

I give it 2.75 stars, or a grade of B-.