"Miss Pettigrew" is one of those feel-good British romances, like "Mrs. Henderson Presents," that whips nostalgia, naivete, and a little ribaldry into a sugared wartime pastry. Here is England, blithe and relatively buoyant before the bombs fall. The film is adorable and knowingly unseemly at the same time. At some point, Miss Pettigrew stares at fashionable department-store mannequins wearing gas masks and says it's horrible. "I know," Delysia replies dolorously, "capped sleeves."
The movie's only crime, though, is dullness. Directed by Bharat Nalluri and adapted by Simon Beaufoy ("The Fully Monty") and David Magee ("Finding Neverland") from Winifred Watson's 1938 novel, the movie is weightless enough to make "Enchanted" seem like a physics doctoral thesis. And yet the film fails as pure escapism. You sit wondering whether Delysia will choose a man before the air-raid sirens sound.
Guinevere Pettigrew herself is meant to be a barrier against the frivolity afoot, but the intrigue and glamour manage to suck her in. Fired from what we're meant to understand is yet another job, for doing things her way (the woman's a rogue governess), she steals the address of a prospective client from her agency. It happens to belong to Delysia, who, when she comes to the door, is in the middle of juggling a few suitors. One of them is a young theater producer who's considering her for a part in a new show and who's up in her bed. Another is on his way over. And Miss Pettigrew gamely helps direct traffic. In urgent need of work, she goes so far as to tell Delysia she used to be Carole Lombard's social secretary. Naturally, Delysia hires Pettigrew to be her own.
