Simply A Masterpiece

Good movie but grossly overrated

The story-telling is good with flashbacks.The film is both funny and heartbreaking. You smile in a scene and get a soulcrushing revelation in the next.

The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

I suppose there is the germ of a good idea here, and 2011's "W.E." is not unsuccessful. As a directing effort by Madonna, it's okay. And you have to give her credit since she had to know everyone would be gunning for her.In 1998, the estate of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor goes up for auction. One person particularly interested in it is Wally Winthrop (Abbie Cornish), who is very taken with the love story between Wallis Simpson and the Duke of Windsor, and particularly Wallis' life and other marriages. The film takes us through the courtship and marriage of the Duke and Duchess as well as Wally's disintegrating marriage to William, and then her relationship with the Soviet security guard she meets at the auction house.Personally I've never found anything romantic or sympathetic about Wallis and David. I think Wallis was a great excuse for David to duck responsibility and heap it onto his stammering brother. And neither he nor Wallis thought about what they were going to do once they were married. And what did they do? Roamed the world, showing up at a location when it was in season, and making friends who would write books about them after they died. By the time the couple realized what they had done, it was too late. No breaking up the great romance.Nevertheless, as many times as their story has been told, it's still fascinating, and much more interesting than the marriage of Wally Winthrop and her husband. Not to mention, there is a fantastic performance by Andrea Risborough as Wallis. As Edward, James D'Arcy is incredibly dashing and attractive. It's really the stronger story, and Madonna might have been better off just telling their tale, using a different point of view than others have in the past.The moral seems to be to take a risk and go for happiness. It's a fine moral; I'm just not sure I would use the Duke and Duchess of Windsor as inspiration. Was theirs a great love story? I'm sure it was, and no doubt the Duke's death hit the Duchess very hard. But they were human beings who undoubtedly fought, took one another for granted, and had some misgivings. And that's the big problem with idealizing any romance - in the end, the people we idealize are too much like us.

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.

This movie obviously had a tremendous budget and no expense was spared in their sets and quality of costumes and locations which are superb and the real 'star' of this movie. It appears that the director really took great pains to ensure authenticity with regard to Wallis Simpson's wardrobe as well as the Royal's wardrobe and their lifestyle. I was quite mesmerized with the laissez faire life that Wallis and what was to be the future King had created and this movie if to be believed portrays it very well. The parallel story in this movie whilst interesting really does not add anything to the already complex and intriguing life of Wallis and Edward; therefore, had the director focused more on W.E., this movie may have been more successful.You can sort of discern in this movie that the Director is 'thinking' out loud to themselves in the way some of the scenes are shot. The director has her actors over emphasize actions in order to convey an emotion that the director thinks is subliminal to the audience when in fact it is just too obvious that the director is a bit immature in their direction. Had this director allowed emotions to develop sincerely without the obvious conjecture of 'set-ups', then again this movie would have been dually successful.

W.E. (2011)Don't even think about who directed this. Think of it as a multi-layered, multi-era epic centering on the marriage of King Edward and his American love, Wallis Simpson. He's the English king who abdicated for love. But this is the story of the love, Wallis, the woman who gave up as much as the king did, or so the thrust of the movie suggests.It's rather good! It mixes a bit of fantasizing with a contemporary woman, Wally, finding her obsession with the Wallis of history (1930s) is more than coincidence. The narrative flips between several parts of the royal story before WWII and the contemporary version, which includes a budding relationship with a guard at an exhibition of Wallis Simpson memorabilia.Whether you find either story convincing doesn't matter. One of them is of course based on history, and is interesting if you don't already know the facts. The other is an echo of the same, with the woman having to become strong and independent just as her earlier namesake did. What is most interesting is the way the two stories are inter-spliced, including some scenes where the two times zones are mixed (apparently in Wally's head, but it's very real to the audience). We start to see how often and completely women are stuck in situations they would not choose if they knew ahead of time. It's about independence, yes, but also failure to be independent and the consequences. And maybe it's about learning a little from history.The director? Madonna. Yes, the singer from Michigan. The director of the terrible bomb "Filth and Wisdom." Here there is some real cinematic intelligence. It's a good movie. Flawed, a bit longer than it needs to be, a bit forced in the layering of stories, but well acted and conceived.