Just the Ticket #59: Kabbalah Confusion
W.E. flashes back and forth between the lives of Wallis (Andrea Riseborough of Happy-Go-Lucky, evoking a bit of Cate Blanchett's Katherine Hepburn in The Aviator) in the mid-to-late 1930's and a similar (but more attractive)-looking 1990's housewife named Wally Winthrop (played by Limitless star Abbie Cornish, a near dead-ringer for Charlize Theron).
The film opens on Wally, whom we first think is a pre-Edward Wallis Simpson considering a divorce from her abusive alcoholic first husband. For the first twenty minutes, she is only referred to as Wally (no mention of the last name Winthrop), and no indication is given--unless one pays close attention to the differences between 30's and 90's fashions, which as a man, I do not--that Wallis and Wally are completely different people. The flashbacks to the 30's are clearly marked, but the transitions to present day are so seamless and unmarked that they confuse to the point of forcing the audience's acceptance of such a flaw as a matter of course, which as a movie critic of self-imposed importance, I did not.
It is only until the hour or so that follow (persistent flaw included) that we begin to get a sense of who Wallis and Wally are and what is happening in their respective eras.
In the 1930's, we have what I previously referred to as "the unofficial prequel to The King's Speech." King Edward (British actor James D'Arcy, with a Johnny Depp-meets-Guy Pearce voice and a name that has "stick up the ass" written all over it) falls for the married Wallis Simpson, a common-looking American commoner, an affair that ultimately leads to their exile from England and Edward's abdication from the throne. Following these events in W.E., Edward's brother, Albert (A.K.A. "Bertie," A.K.A. "Stuttering George," A.K.A. King George VI) takes the throne in his place, and if you've seen The King's Speech, you know the rest. By the way, what's with the Queen of England having a Russian accent? Who thought that was a good idea? Oh, yeah...Madonna. Well, if you're going to have anyone in charge of a movie with inconsistent and non-existent British accents, might as well go to the expert on the subject.
In the 1990's, Cornish, as Wally Winthrop, is going through the motions of a domestically abused housewife--begging the man who beats her to have sex with her, not reporting the abuse, retreating into alcohol (as does pretty much everyone in the movie) and fantasy to escape her problems, and fifty other cliche's of the like--holding imaginary conversations with her namesake of the other era, and window-shopping at a Wallis Simpson auction in a constant state of nostalgic melancholy. One would expect the traditional serendipitous ending that Wally finds out she's a descendant of the most hated woman of the 1930's, but the payoff never comes.
Madonna tries too hard to make a good impression as a director, (did I mention?) failing miserably, and in a double-shot of shark-jumping raspberries, ends up making W.E. too smart for its own good. The movie closes with the cliffhanger line, "I need to tell you something." Unfortunate kin to the average pompous professor, W.E. tries to appear smarter and more profound than it actually is, but talks for an hour and a half without telling us anything.
F+
Tomorrow on Netflix, I should be getting Attack the Block and the Keanu Reeves/River Phoenix oldie, My Own Private Idaho. And speaking of names that have "stick up the ass" written all over them, nothing says "I have a ruler in my rectum" like King Edward's full name: Edward Albert Christian George Andrew Patrick David. I shit thee not and bid thee "stay tuned."
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