W.E. (2012)

Very best movie i ever watch

Good concept, poorly executed.

Awesome Movie

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

If I were to review this movie aesthetically it would be an 11/10. It is a nice movie to look at. The Edward/Wallis scenes in particular were pure eye-candy, especially for a period drama lover like me. The score of the movie was also great. It was actually one of the movie's tracks ("Dance For Me Wallis") that introduced me to this movie and made me want to watch it.Sadly, as beautiful as this movie is, it falls rather flat where its story is concerned. The entire Wally storyline should have been omitted altogether. The only good thing about it is that it has Oscar Isaac. This movie would have been great of it was just about Edward and Wallis. I actually thought that was the case and that Abbie Cornish and Oscar Isaac's characters were museum/auction people of sorts and that Edward and Wallis' story would be narrated through them.To start with, Wally is a boring character. She does not deserve to be the protagonist of this movie and we as an audience do not deserve to have to go through her boring life when we could be watching a much more interesting story; Edward and Wallis'.Wally and Evgeny were supposed to mirror Wallis and Edward which I frankly found stupid because they really didn't have that much in common? You are hardly creating a parallel just because the characters' names start with the same letter. I also found Wally's name cheesy, much like the explanation behind why she's called that. I get that it was a big part of the film that she's obsessed with Wallis but I think they could have easily made that point even if her name was Jessica or Sarah. Her being called Wally was something you'd expect from a story written by a twelve-year-old, not professionals.Another problem with this movie is that although it is a romance the actors don't really have that much chemistry with each other. Oscar Isaac is an actor who I think can be charismatic even next to a cactus but I still did not find Evgeny and Wally's love story particularly engaging. James D'Arcy and Andrea Risenborough are somewhat better together but I still didn't feel like Edward and Wallis' love was so grand and strong as the movie wanted us to think. I actually find that they have more chemistry in pictures (like that promotional picture of them on the beach) than they did in action.All in all I think that if they omitted the Wally storyline altogether and kept it about Edward and Wallis only (but still found a place for Oscar Isaac in that storyline because he is frankly too awesome) this movie would have been a lot better.

The romance of King Edward VIII (James D'Arcy) and Wallis Simpson (Andrea Riseborough) has been retold many times before, most notably (for me at least) in the TV series EDWARD AND MRS. SIMPSON with Edward Fox in the title role. Madonna's version of the tale juxtaposes the story with a present-day tale involving Wally Winthrop (Abbie Cornish), her violent husband William (Richard Voyle) and a Russian intellectual employed at Sotheby's in New York, Evgeni (Oscar Isaac). The parallels are obvious enough: Wally identifies with Mrs. Simpson and contrasts her own mundane existence with that of the royal lover. Eventually she comes to realize that she has the kind of life-choices denied to Mrs. Simpson. Shot in rock-video style, with fast cuts preventing any real identification with the characters, W.E. actually seems like an attempt by director Madonna to make sense of her own life as a singer/actress/celebrity. The settings are well drawn; the performances competent (even though D'Arcy looks nothing like the real Duke of Windsor). However the narrative tends to drag a little as it moves towards its predictable end. The film has certain incidental pleasures, notably the appearance of Turkish actor/star Haluk Bilginer as Mohammed Al Fayed.

"W./E." opens with a depressed Manhattan house-wife in the 90s and Wallis Simpson marrying a husband in the 1920s. It's hard to say which era we were in since the film cut back in forth through time at a dizzying rate. The protagonist (if that's what she's supposed to be) is Wally Winthrop (Abbie Cornish) named after the infamous Wally Simpson and living in a time she doesn't belong in.Her husband comes straight from the men's club-era husband of the 1950s where he makes the money and she just has to accept his beatings. She seems to also think that they're living in the 1950s and she unhappily resigns herself to living the role of his wife. As if women nowadays have no other options. It's a very backwards place to start a film from.The beginning is enough to make anybody sick with the rapid-fire cuts all over the place between the two eras, shaky camera work, and the modern-era Wally putting herself in ridiculously disastrous positions. The romanticists out there can probably get past that because the film will eventually get to the historic love affair between Wallis Simpson (Andrea Riseborough) and King Edward VIII (James D'Arcy). So well acted and reasonably accurate that their story is entertaining and informative.The film also eventually does a better job with splicing the two stories together. We actually spend full scenes in each era and then making some timely edits. The modern Wally is still a pretty insufferable protagonist but she may find love after all; however, the reveal of Wallis Simpson's life after marriage number 3 and British exile shows that the modern Wally picked a hero with very little to look up to.

If you can understand why people in the 1930's or 1940's would be dancing or listening to music not produced until the 1970's and 80's then this is the film for you. I made no sense of any of the first 25mins, and turned it off after that. it was so painful i could not sit through much more than that and had to turn it off. It has no details about wallis simpson that i can't find on wikipedia.I just don't understand why Madonna even attempted this, She should stick to singing and leave the documentary stuff to the experts. bad enough she ruined evita for me.