The setting is 1939 London on the brink of World War II. McDormand seizes the opportunity to provide a memorable acting coup as Miss Guinevere Pettigrew, a problematical, middle-aged governess with a run of bad luck. Dismissed from her job and given the brush off by an employment agent, she is broke and unemployed. Intercepting a job assignment meant for another woman, she turns up at the home of an American actress and singer, Delysia Lafosse (Adams), whose life is a whirlwind of balancing boyfriends and keeping up pretenses hiding her origins. She is living it up with money no object in the lavish apartment of Nick (Mark Strong), a lover and controlling nightclub owner. Amy Adams is smashing in the looks department and completely enchanting in her role.

Pettigrew smartly takes things in hand in a spur of the moment crisis and becomes indispensable to Delysia, who considers her a new social secretary, decides to give her a fashionable makeover, including the appropriate clothes, and they’re off and running. Akin to some of the screwball comedies of the 1930s and 40s, the film has a clever screenplay by David Magee and Simon Beaufoy based on the novel by the late rediscovered British writer Winifred Watson. It is stylishly directed by Bharat Nalluri.

The thrust of the entertaining story involves Pettigrew getting a chance to find happiness in life after she meets an admiring fashion designer played by Ciarán Hinds, while Delysia has to sort out whether she should opt for Nick, her pianist suitor Michael (Lee Pace), or would-be impresario Phil (Tom Payne). Lurking on the fashion sidelines and trying to derail Pettigrew is the haughty Edythe (Shirley Henderson).

Everything takes place in a compressed time period, and the romp is really an improbable adult fairy tale. The film has an excellent score, ranging from the wisely used depression song “Brother Can You Spare a Dime” when Pettigrew is down and out and despondent, to such numbers as “Anything Goes,” “If I Didn’t Care,” “Dream” and “T’Aint What You Do (It’s the Way that Cha Do It).” The overall look is gorgeous, with plaudits due cinematographer John de Borman, BSC, production designer Sarah Greenwood, costume designer Michael O’Connor.