W.E.

W.E. is the true life account of King Edward VIII and his controversial love affair with American socialite Wallis Simpson that ended up costing him the throne.  It is also seen through the contemporary eyes of  the married and unhappy character of American Wally Winthrop, who becomes personally fascinated and obsessed with the story and the parallels to her own life.  First off, this movie directed by Madonna is way too far long.  I mean it looks good, the trailer I remember was very interesting and good, and it looks good throughout with the cinematography, costumes, and set pieces.   Yet, it took a while to really understand what what really going on in this film, as we're going back and forth throughout six decades between two different stories with annoying, infrequent intersections of the two women via the imagination of Wallis and Wally.  Throughout watching the movie, out of boredom and an attempt to understand, I found myself googling who the historical  characters were and their stories, as this film took forever to put the full context together.  Madonna, I suspect strongly like myself is a Wong Kar Wai fan, because this movie is drenched in what might be her very heavy handed attempt as an ode to his works; even  so far as to the similar cello theme of In The Mood For Love.  This attention to aesthetics  might be all well and good  and admittedly, I was intrigued with certain facets of it, but it only serves to further confuse the storyline and is far too excessive for a story of this kind.  What further divides and detracted from the film for me, was the contemporary second storyline of Wally and how it was even all that significantly relevant to the historical romance of  Wallis and Edward.  I mean sure, this girl needed some help and was unhappy, but to just sit around sadly and go to artsy galleries bidding on things related to a legendary love affair in such a obsessive manner...   Her storyline wasn't even needed, or at least could have be told better.  At least change her fictional name because the parallels only further confused me.  Initially, I was thinking who the hell are all of these Williams, Wallis, and Wally.  Are they related somehow?  What was meant to be uncovered by the quest of Wally, somehow throughout gets lost with too much length and Madonna's heavy handed direction.  If you do manage to muddle through this, there are interesting and relevant subjects that do come up for which Madonna is understandably aptly suited to helm, such as the role of media/public perception, privacy, living and loving on your own terms, and the price of celebrity for both Wallis and Edward that had many parallels to the life and death of Princess Diana.