Madonna Can't Do Anything

Madonna's direction: Ok now kiss her but be really uncomfortable about it, and try way too hard...perfect.

I know I'm a little late on this sentiment, but here we go. What CAN Madonna do? Well she can sip tea, pretend she's Jewish and generally annoy us on any given day but that's about it. I don't care about her music, lets talk about her 'directing'. I finally sat down to watch W/E (2011) today because I've been on a masochistic streak of late and it was on Netflix Instant. I quite like Andrea Riseborough who plays the man trap Wallis Simpson who causes the biggest crisis in the British Monarchy before Princess Di and Prince Charles divorced. Now, rich white people problems are always fascinating, especially when they're in love. There's almost always a problem in the bedroom, whether someone's too kinky or not kinky enough, or someone is having an affair with a hat check girl or worse...someone who's nouveau riche. 

Either way, Madonna is always digging like a pig for truffles for that tiny glimmer of romance amongst an otherwise dull and drab story. Here's what basically happened. Edward VIII was a milquetoast do-nothing prince and heir to the British throne, terribly busy with throwing lavish dinner parties for society friends. Wallis Simpson was twice divorced poor white trash who eventually merited an invitation to meet the dilettante. After that they fell in love, the royal family hated her (of course, since when do they like people?) and forced Edward to abdicate his thrown, hence shit like The King's Speech (2011) was able to be made about his even less interesting brother.

Wallis and Edward on their wedding day.

The entire time I was watching it, I was thinking; 'If I see one more shot out of focus come into focus I'm going to seriously blow chunks' that's basically don't of Film School 101, and what the fuck is up with all the grainy handhelds? Like this is some gritty indie drama about junkies and prostitutes. Aesthetically this movie is such a fail, even though it desperately tries to convince us that Edward and Wallis were actually way more attractive than they actually were.

The story is all told through a young lady named Wally Wintrhop (Abbie Cornish) and we all know how much I love her. She's the only one really really trying in this film to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear, but it's to no avail. She plays a woman who like worked at Sotheby's at one point and now is disappointed in her marriage to a rich successful and handsome doctor (I mean, who wouldn't be?) so she frequents her old gallery where they just happen to be auctioning off the entire W/E collection. And then there's a subplot about her fucking a handsome Russian security guard for absolutely no reason at all, but that's to be expected when the screenplay is absolutely for shit.

If I glance through the view finder then it will appear as if I'm a real director.

Don't get me wrong, there is romance in this story, the actual story, all of which the film misses. There is nothing erotic, refined, or sensual the whole way through, it's so redundant and banal I ACTUALLY fell asleep...And then I woke up nauseous because there was another dreaded out-of-focus handheld I was waking up to, and The Sex Pistols' 'Pretty Vacant' was playing in a scene set in 1935. F to the AIL.

...Aaaaaand trailer.