Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day

Surely it's scientifically impossible to find a more charming film than Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day. For starters, we have the source material: Winifred Watson's bright, winsome novel of the same name, set in 1930s London. Then we have Amy Adams playing Delysia Lafosse, an American starlet trying to make it on the London stage, who in one light is utterly unbearable, but in another, quite ditzily adorable.

And, of course, we have Frances McDormand as the put-upon Guinevere Pettigrew, an out-of-work governess who interlopes her way into a job as Delysia's social secretary. And Delysia certainly does require some assistance with her diary appointments - she has three lovers and a burgeoning career to juggle after all.

What follows is a French-farce-meets-screwball-comedy, spread over a single day in which Miss Pettigrew, for the first time in her life, begins to have a jolly good time. Everything you could possibly want in such a movie is here: the Cinderella-esque transformation, the simmering cat-fights, the wonderful costumes, the fabulous music... light and airy and sweet, it's a perfect little souffle of a movie. ·