Yes she does. Contrary to what the actual film title suggests, Miss Pettigrew does get her own happily ever after and it is not just that one day in which she actually lives. I believe she actually does live happily in love to a ripe old age (if she was old at the beginning, she was certainly not ripe). So no, there is no wistful end in which we leave the cinema nostalgic after the screen slowly faded into black as Miss Pettigrew walked down an empty street in London in her finest apparel. Of course not! This is a screwball comedy!
And for that, I am grateful. 'Miss Pettigrew lives for another day' may have a typical ending and a romantic-comedy-template of a plot but sometimes we have to stop being an uptight cliched anti-conformist shunning everything that is unoriginal. I was feeling lighthearted today and to tell you the truth, when I read about Miss Pettigrew, I really could not tell if Delysia Lafosse (Amy Adams) would end up with the 'devoted pianist' or the 'hostile night club owner' ('phil the impressionable junior impresario' was obviously out of the question) but maybe that's just because I'm still a young'un chasing after hopefully-reformable bad boys. Besides, I found it a challenge for this one to reinforce our monogamous romanticisms when Miss Lafosse had 3 boyfriends on the side. Somehow, it did. Yay!
I believe that film is not just an art of story telling but also a form of escapism. Now, I don't mean to sound I'm suffering from Star Trek Mania but I think one of the best things about film is its ability to submerge us in another place, another time, another 'reality'. Miss Pettigrew did that. Aside from already being in love with big band jazz and fashions before my time, I lived in Miss Pettigrew, loved it for its fast-paced buzz and hated it for lasting just an hour and a half.
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