Miss Pettigrew lives for a day

Cinderella story

MISS PETTIGREW LIVES FOR A DAY

Cert. PG; 92 minutes

Director: Bharat Nalluri

The novel on which this film is based was written by Winifred Watson and first appeared in 1938.

It is a Cinderella story. Miss Pettigrew is a vicar’s daughter who, with no friends or relations to care, has fallen on hard times and is trying to get work as a governess in London on the eve of WWII. She is a ‘middle-aged, rather angular lady, of medium height, thin through lack of good food, with a timid, defeated expression’, according to the book, and so the film faithfully portrays her.

Driven by need and through a mixture of misunderstanding, deceit and accident, she finds herself taken on as a social secretary to aspiring singer/actress Miss Delysia LaFosse who is hoping to land a starring role in a West End musical by sleeping with the producer’s son. Thus, Miss Pettigrew is introduced to the high-life world of show business people, a world which is materialistic, superficial, deceptive and decadent and in which she feels awkward and out of place.

However, as her day with all its surprises unfolds, though despised by the party-going set, Miss Pettigrew has a depth and outlook which, without giving the story away, saves the day for Miss LaFosse, who learns that love is not just a game.

The tagline for the film is ‘every woman will have her day’. But there is more to it than that. This is a well-executed period piece, full of wonderful actors and moves like a powerful parable of how weightless postmodern people so desperately needs to encounter actual truth and virtue. It is reminiscent of the fact that the Bible-believing church, though treated as an unwanted, down-at-heel Cinderella by the ugly sisters of this world, has the needed wisdom to save the day.