Acting, of course, has something do with it. But the charm that emanates from Amy Adams like a perfume in “Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day” is also a natural gift.
Her character, Delysia Lafosse, an American actress and singer clawing her way up the show business ladder in 1939 London, may be an amoral, sociopathic vixen. But in Ms. Adams’s portrayal she is also an irresistibly endearing creature of moods and whims, one who melts the hearts of the possessive, egotistical beaus she carelessly juggles while pursuing the leading role in a West End musical. Despite her foibles she is as lovable as Giselle, Ms. Adams’s character in last year’s “Enchanted.”
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. For the next few years, until the dew evaporates, all Ms. Adams need do to win friends and influence people is weave variations on this archetype: Ms. Arthur filtered through a flightier Julia Roberts with a dollop of Melanie Griffith. Beneath their wiles, Ms. Adams’s princesses are true-blue souls who would sooner die than hurt anyone. They’re just a little ditzy.
Without Ms. Adams’s presence, who knows what “Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day” might have been. As it stands, the movie, directed by Bharat Nalluri from a screenplay by David Magee and Simon Beaufoy, is an example of how a little nothing of a story can be inflated into a little something of a movie with perfect casting, dexterous tonal manipulation and an astute eye and ear for detail.
Delysia’s foil, Guinevere Pettigrew (Frances McDormand), is an impecunious, strait-laced vicar’s daughter and governess. Desperate for work after being dumped by her employment agency, she steals someone else’s assignment for a job as Delysia’s social secretary. As the down-and-out Guinevere, Ms. McDormand is almost a dead ringer for Carol Burnett playing her charwoman character.
The lair in which Delysia madly flutters is the Art Deco apartment of Nick (Mark Strong), one of her three lovers and the tough, oily impresario of a nightclub where she sings. Another lover, Phil (Tom Payne), the pretty-boy son of the producer of the musical in which she hopes to star, is in bed with Delysia when Guinevere arrives.
As competing boyfriends are hustled in and out of the apartment, “Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day” takes on the trappings of a French farce, in which a shocked Guinevere finds herself Delysia’s co-conspirator in deception. Then, for the first time in her life, Guinevere begins to enjoy herself; she discovers pleasure. Ms. McDormand portrays this metamorphosis from glum stoicism to demure radiance with impressive comic understatement.
Michael (Lee Pace), the poor but noble Prince Charming to Delysia’s feckless Cinderella, is a nightclub pianist who has little to offer her other than his talents as an accompanist. But together, he believes, they can ascend to the pinnacle of show business.
The story takes place in a single day during which Guinevere follows her new employer to a fashion show and allows herself, at Delysia’s expense, to be spruced up with a new hairdo and new clothes. As she warms under Delysia’s tutelage, a tentative smile illuminates her poker face.
This being a fairy tale, Guinevere’s deliverance is conveniently at hand in the person of a dashing lingerie designer, Joe (Ciaran Hinds), whose latest collection of elaborate, sexy support garments is unveiled at a fancy private department store showing. Here Guinevere is enlisted by Edythe (Shirley Henderson), a snippy socialite, as an ally in her romantic pursuit of Joe, her sometime fiancé.
The female rivalries never descend to tooth and claw, and the malice is confined to sidelong remarks. No one is entirely dislikable, and as the movie flits from one silly confrontation to the next, it doesn’t waste a moment. Just when you worry that the soap bubble is about to burst, Paul Englishby’s wonderful swing music kicks in.
How light is this movie? So buoyant that even an air raid warning, signaling that this whole world is about to crumble under the blitz, can’t dampen its giddy spirits.
