Venice Film Festival, Day Two: Madonna's W.E. is Forgettable; Polanski's Carnage Giddily Enjoyable - Thompson on Hollywood
And so to today’s films. To say
W.E. divided critics would be an understatement. In particular sections of the British press, who seemed pre-disposed to dislike it because of Madonna’s participation, turned vicious. Some US and Australian reactions, among others, were more favourable.
My view on
W.E. was that it’s silly and forgettable, but you could choose to be appalled or amused by it, and I chose the latter. It’s rather better than expected; it’s not without its endearing moments. Still, a Madonna film that deals partly with the love affair between King Edward VIII and Mrs. Simpson is undeniably a strange concoction. Madonna (who also co-scripted with Alex Keshishian) has fashioned a split-level story of two couples: the Windsors, and the growing attraction between Wally Winthrop (Abbie Cornish), a contempo Manhattan woman, and Evgeni (Oscar Isaac), a handsome Russian working the security detail at Sotheby’s. Wally, unhappily married, has inherited her mother’s and grandmother’s obsession with Wallis and Edward (played by Andrea Riseborough and James d’Arcy). She doggedly researches their lives, seeking clues about how to live her own. In extreme moments, Wallis Simpson actually appears to her, offering advice – including “Get a life!”
W.E. skips around in time, tracing the Windsors’ budding romance, the scandal and Edward’s abdication. Meanwhile Wally’s affair with the hunky Evgeni blossoms.
In presenting these intertwined stories Madonna keeps the emotional level on overload. Abel Korzoniowski’s crashingly loud music thrums repetitively. Madonna’s familiarity with pop videos is evident from her focussing on arresting images: a teardrop in close-up, welling from an unblinking eye.
It all looks good, or at least glossy, in the manner of high-end cosmetics commercials. Exotic locations (Portofino, Cap d’Antibes) are visited, and luxury brand names (Moet, Cartier, Schiaparelli) dropped. Wally pays repeatedly visits an auction of the Windsors’ possessions;
W.E. often feels like an extended infomercial for Sotheby’s New York. Yet Riseborough and Cornish acquit themselves well, and
W.E. may appeal to younger female audiences intrigued by fashion. One suspects Madonna views the Windsors primarily as style icons; her version of their lives is a fantasia that will not trouble historians. (She seems to condone Edward and Wallis’s cozy relationship with the Third Reich.) Yet after a surfeit of dull, dutiful books and stale, plodding TV documentaries about this unappealing couple, this frivolous, over the top treatment almost seems a relief.
The critics already hate Madonna's new movie | Film | Newswire | The A.V. Club
I wonder if its about Madonna being the regisseur or the movie simply being bad.
Yesterday Madonna presented herself as a diva, at the press conference a fan gave her some flowers and she put them away muttering I hate such flowers (although she acknowledged that it wasnt the fan's fault).
Completely agree
