Film Reviews

W.E.

• Rating:
• Director:
• Starring: Abbie Cornish
• Details: UK / 119mins (16).

There was a great story to be told here but Madonna, in her second time behind the camera (she also wrote the script), opted for the wrong one, as she discovers that a link between Abbie Cornish's contemporary Manhattan housewife and Andrea Riseborough's 30s Baltimore socialite proves to be too tenuous to work. Despite a questionable positioning of the camera at times, Madonna handles proceedings competently enough, but don't beat yourself up if you can't get madonnamadonnamadonnamadonnamadonna out of your head for W.E.,s (overlong) duration.
Just as he's about to take the throne, Prince Edward (D'Arcy) falls for Wallis Simpson (Riseborough), a twice married American. The romance is a national scandal and the royal family (and public) let it be known they would never accept a divorcee as Queen. Besotted with Wallis, Edward abdicates and the two live their life in exile. Fast forward seventy years and Wally (Cornish) is obsessed with the love affair; avoiding her abusive husband (Richard Coyle), Wally hangs around the Edward/Wallis exhibition in Manhattan where she meets dashing security guard Evgeni (Isaac)...
Towards the end of W.E., when Cornish reads Simpson's treasured personal letters to her family, there is a line that goes something like, "You have no idea what it's like to live out the greatest romance of the century. Now I will be with him always. And always. And always." That notion should have been the movie - what happens after two lovers ride off into the sunset - but instead Madonna frames that romance with the contemporary romance between Cornish and Isaac. However believable, despite the shoehorning in of unneeded humour, it's hard to see how this plot deserves its inclusion here.
Madonna has her reasons, though. Cornish's Wally tells us she's interested in Wallis' story because most stories focus on Edward and no one investigates Wallis and what she had to give up; this mirrors Wally's marriage as she put her career to one side to support her husband's. But this link is too weak and W.E. Is essentially two different movies jammed together. The cutting back and forth through the timelines is jarring too: Madonna looks for a visual link - a piece of jewellery or an item of furniture - but they just don't click.
Pretty to look at W.E may be, Madonna's positioning of camera can be a distraction: for reasons only the director knows, she would suddenly cut to aerial shots, close up of lips and even include an Aronofsky-esque injection scene. These moments are a director trying too hard and have a habit of undermining whatever the scene is trying to do.
Cornish and Riseborough - the latter especially - show again why they are in high demand but it's all rather empty and unfocussed.

Review by Gavin Burke