My Week with Marilyn ****

There's a difference between being successful and being legendary. In the 1950s Marilyn Monroe was the world's most famous blonde actress. Rival movie studios were feverishly cloning blonde bimbos, in the form of Jayne Mansfield, Sheree North, Diana Dors and many more, but none of them lasted.

Sixty years later, all those blondes have been forgotten, but Monroe remains an instantly recognisable Hollywood icon. Now Kenneth Branagh has made a wonderful, resonant, poignant film about the real woman behind the screen legend.

It's not a full biography of Monroe. It focuses narrowly on the production of a film called The Prince and the Showgirl (1957). Laurence Olivier was the director and he also played the dull, starchy prince who wants to marry a sweet but saucy showgirl, played by Monroe.

On paper, it looked like a sure winner: the sexiest woman in the world acting with the greatest actor/director of his day. In reality, making the film was an extremely difficult task. The British cast and crew were punctual, orderly and up to the job. Monroe (played by Michelle Williams) was not. She was chronically late and her life was in chaos. Her marriage to playwright Arthur Miller (Dougray Scott) was disintegrating. Her agent, Milton Greene (Dominic Cooper), got in everyone's way and her acting coach Paula Strasberg (Zoë Wanamaker), a fierce proponent of "method acting", was abrasive and overly protective.

Despite the charisma and celebrity of Monroe, the film evokes the scars of her tough life before she became an actress. Her mother was mentally unstable. Monroe was raised in a series of orphanages, and as a teenager, she became a photographic model. She was also a "playmate" in the first edition of Playboy.

Then a talent scout found her, and she rapidly became a star.

The more famous she became, the more her anxieties flared up. Her fear drove her into a panic, leaving her unable to act. Olivier's lordly manner and the rigid shooting schedule on The Prince and the Showgirl put her even more on edge.

The only person on the set with whom Monroe felt secure was Colin (Eddie Redmayne), a young man with a vague ambition to work in the movie business. Within the abrasive atmosphere, he calmed her down and gave her the focus she needed to go in front of the cameras.

Their relationship was brief and it could have been dull were it not for the luminous performance of Williams. She's been around for a while, doing great work: she starred in Brokeback Mountain (2005) for which she won a Best Supporting Actress nomination. Blue Valentine (2010) brought her a Best Actress nomination. But in this film she goes above and beyond every role that she has ever played.

Although Williams does not look much like Marilyn, when she is in make-up, she inhabits the character perfectly . It's one of those once-in-a-lifetime performances and you cannot take your eyes off her.

There are other perfectly judged performances. Judi Dench is marvellous as actress Sybil Thorndike, and Branagh, as Olivier, is faultless in both voice and gesture. Julia Ormond plays Vivien Leigh, and Emma Watson, freed from the clutches of Harry Potter, plays Lucy, the wardrobe girl who has a crush on Colin .

Branagh's direction is precise, witty and detailed. There's enough comedy to keep it bright, and enough drama to make it fascinating. It's one of those beautifully crafted, powerfully acted British dramas, in the style of the previous Oscar-winner The King's Speech, and for my money, Williams is the front-runner in the Oscar race.

Close Up

Andrew Stanton is one of the top producer-directors at the Disney studio, but with John Carter he has stepped out of the animation format into a live-action adventure based on some the earliest science-fiction ever written.

Under The Moons of Mars was published in February 1912, in the All-Story Magazine. It was written by Norman Bean, aka Edgar Rice Burroughs, who also wrote the Tarzan books. It was later re-titled The Princess of Mars and John Carter was its heroic lead character.

Stanton believes that the fascination of these stories arose because they were built on expectation, imagination and excitement. "There were no movies in 1912. You found your excitement in the serial-adventure magazines. That was what you had instead of movies - cliff-hangers so exciting that people could not wait to buy the next magazine," Stanton said.

"Those stories challenged you to read them, and you rushed to buy the next edition to find out what happened. When the stories were finally finished, the most popular one would be made into a book. That's how Edgar Rice Burroughs finally owned up to being the author of The Princess of Mars," he said.

"After I had read through the 11 John Carter books, I told myself, 'they will be my Harry Potters'. I tried really hard to capture what I thought was universal and timeless about this book."

Carter is played in the film by Taylor Kitsch, and it's quite a character to play. Carter is a Southern boy from Virginia, who fought in the American Civil War. By a process of astral travel he landed on Mars, where he does not age. And because there is less gravity on Mars, he is able to accomplish amazing feats - a new superhero who comes from the past. Can he compete with the new Batman and Spider-Man? We'll find out when John Carter opens on March 9.