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W.E.
[Blu-ray]
Blu-ray A - America - Anchor Bay Entertainment Review written by and copyright: Ethan Stevenson (20th June 2012). |
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The Film
 “Little girls love fairytales. You know, the ‘Happily Ever After’ kind.” Preconceived notions can be powerful things. For instance, I assumed—as I think many other critics probably did too—that, before I even saw it, “W.E.” was going to be a mediocre, if not outright mess of a movie. The reason (and I only admit this because, as it turns out, I was sort of right in my presumption)? Because it was directed and written by Madonna. Yes, that Madonna. Impolite to prejudge perhaps, but then again, Madge’s cinematic endeavors—both as an actress and a director—have proven less than favorable; especially so in recent years. From miscast to memorable in her younger days, to morosely, miserably terrible in almost anything she’s done post-Millennium, Madonna has rarely ever been the highlight of any particular film in which she’s appeared. Her best, or at least her best performance, was probably as infamous B-movie actress and Argentinean first lady Eva Peron in Alan Parker’s “Evita” (1996), but that movie’s decent at best; more of a curiosity, as a musical misfire, than a really, truly, well made film. Infamously responsible for Guy Ritchie’s worst movie, “Swept Away” (2002), Madge has never really sat well with that crowd. And as the star of such a gruelingly grotesque rom-com in “The Next Best Thing” (2000)—the movie where she sleeps with her gay best friend and they end up raising a baby together—well, yeah… not too good there, either. Some have incorrectly called “W.E.”—Madonna’s period costume drama interpretation of the epic love story between Edward VIII (James D’Arcy), the English King who abdicated the throne for the woman he loved, and Wallis Simpson (Andrea Riseborough), the American socialite worthy of Edward’s affections and abandoned crown—the singer/actress/icon’s directorial debut. This simply isn’t true. Although Madonna began writing the script and preparing for production for “W.E.” in the middle 2000's, when she was still married to Guy Ritchie no less, it isn’t her first turn as director. Realizing that she’d never, as a first time director, be able to secure the budget she needed to tell the tale she wanted, how she wanted, she first stepped behind the camera with “Filth and Wisdom” (2008), a low budget comedy about a group of young, artsy Londoners, which was laughed off screen by most everybody who saw it (and keep in mind, few did). But even through her debut bombed, Madonna still forged on as through noting was wrong and went about raising money for her passion project. Perhaps as a testament of her will to get Wallis’ story told, it’s said that most of the $35,000,000 production budget for “W.E.” came from an equal combination of UK tax credits and her own wallet. Forget what I said about “can be”; preconceived notions are powerful things. Case in point: Wally Winthrop (Abbie Cornish) believes that the real life fairytale of Wallis and the man who renounced his Crown to be with her—both later to be dubbed the Duchess and Duke “David” of Windsor by Edward’s forgiving brother—to be the greatest love story ever told. Like a little girl who believes in Happily Ever After endings, Wally escapes her own horrible marriage to a cheating husband (Richard Coyle), who won’t let her work, by obsessively imagining what life was like for Wallis, the woman for whom Wally was apparently named. In 1998, when several of the couple’s most prized possessions appear for auction at the Sotheby’s Auction House (her old employer), Wally begins spending every waking hour with the artifacts, daydreaming of the greatest love of all. She imagines the two nobles madly in everlasting L-O-V-E, and envisions just how the events leading up to and following the infamous Abdication unfolded. Never mind what the reality was—that the relationship wasn’t easy for Wallis or David, both of who had to make sacrifices—Wally believes everything about their story is grand. Of course, it wasn’t. And it’s a damn shame that Madonna, who penned the screenplay with Alek Keshishian—the director of her documentary “Madonna: Truth or Dare” (1991)—decided to basically “Julie and Julia” (2009) the whole thing, spitting the near 2-hour runtime between two timelines, because I generally had no issue whatsoever with the scenes centered around Wallis and David in the 1920's and 30's (aside from the constant assertion that they weren’t Nazi sympathizers; they were, but then again, most European aristocrats tolerated Hitler’s totalitarian fascist state until he forced their hand and invaded Poland, because no one wanted another conflict after the utter continental desecration that came from The Great War). In fact, most of the storyline between the eventual Duke and Duchess as written, directed and cast really could’ve sustained a whole film, with few, if any, changes (just more scenes, of course). Andrea Riseborough is marvelous as Simpson; she does more in a single scene than most actresses, including her co-star Abbie Cornish, have done their entire careers. Riseborough gives one of the best female performances of last year here. It’s really something; so good that in retrospect, I wonder if it perhaps over-inflates the flashback scenes in their greatness. D’Arcy is good too as David, believably torn between love of family and country, and the love of a woman. Scriptwise, actingwise and otherwise, “W.E.’s” problems lie almost exclusively in the scenes set in 1998. Cornish isn’t a great actress and clearly out of her element here. She’s also asked to play a poorly conceived character, forced to interact in a storyline that is badly written, so perhaps it isn’t all her fault. The ’98 scenes seem like they’re from two conflicting movies unto themselves. At one moment, Madonna is directing and has written a solemn relationship drama about a woman dangerously close to her end, crumbling at the hands of an emotionally and physically abusive husband. At another, she’s guiding Wally through a quirky romantic comedy, where she meets and falls for a Russian renaissance man (Oscar Isaac), who is a Sotheby security guard by day and classical concert pianist by night. Yes, seriously. That both of these “present day” plots are interwoven with the flashbacks of the mostly factually-accurate, but at-times imagined love story of Wallis and the man who was King until he wasn’t, prove only to enhance the odd shifts in tone and style. At every turn, the moments with wistful Wally make for a very messy movie. It doesn’t help that both of the men in the Wally-1998 storyline are equally ill-equipped actors; they’re one-dimensional clichés as characters (yes, even the security guard-composer) but played by actors unable to do much of anything interesting. Worse still is the fact that while Madonna has gathered together some truly gifted people to outfit her dual worlds with a slick cinematographic style, classy Oscar nominated costumes by Arianne Phillips, truly sumptuous set design and a classical-meets-modern score by Abel Korzeniowski, it’s all nearly for naught. Madge seems to be so preoccupied with the idea that she needs to make some sort of artistic impact, visually. In the end, make her film standout she chooses a cinematic style that’s at once both beautifully captivating and blatantly confused. The stark and expansive widescreen cinematography by Hagden Bogdanski is largely gorgeous, except it’s filled with odd stylistic flourishes that lack logic (and are only made more awkward by strange editing decisions). Shot on a combination of grainy 16mm and 35mm, Madonna and Bogdanski use the two formats without rhyme or reason, other than to give the film an interesting look. The Super16 material is all gritty, handheld and even, at times, appears to have been hand-cranked; conversely, the 35mm is clean and beautifully bleak. An effective use of the two styles might have been if Wally’s chaotic “now” was all gritty Super16 while the idealized past appeared cleaner and more focused with the sharpness of 35mm. But that’s not the case (too conventionally cliché?), and instead grainy, shaky, 16mm close-ups appear in both timelines at seemingly random times. Now, sometimes the stylistic flourishes work. (Remember, “W.E.” is an odd combination of excellent and awful; this is true in almost every regard). For example, a scene in the 1930's, when Edward visits the impoverished people of South Wales, is done in both black and white and hand-cranked color, and haphazardly edited to effectively establish the unease he’s at in the face of the sudden sight of poor people living in such terrible conditions. The mishmash of visual styles, combined with the frenzied editing rhythm and evocative score make for a great sequence; it works thematically and looks cool (perhaps like old newsreel footage even, which totally fits with the following scene; yay!). But black and white is cut into other scenes; the hand-cranked look is used elsewhere for little reason too. The latter is most bizarre in small segments of Wally’s story. I can excuse the stylization as flights of fancy in the romantic fantasy. But why do the flourishes appear at all in Wally’s timeline, which is supposed to be more grounded? It’s decisions like these that make “W.E.” such a frustrating, flawed, film. Some of the decisions just don’t make sense, and make the whole thing feel like random parts rather than a cohesive whole as a film. There’s a truly excellent movie in “W.E.” somewhere; a few terrific performances, a great sound and a pleasing, if inconsistent, look. The story of Wallis and David, basically as it appears in “W.E.”, could’ve served as a great spiritual, parallel, sequel to Tom Hopper’s exacting, meticulously crafted and genuinely marvelous “The King's Speech” (2010). Alas, that isn’t what “W.E.” is in the end, mostly because of the problems presented by the dual timeline approach. Ultimately, it's Madonna’s fault that it doesn’t work. After all, she wrote, produced, directed and partly financed the picture, and the flaws are someone’s fault, just as the success (of which there are a few) are someone's victory. As the major creative force behind the production, Madonna is that person and as much as she is the reason for what works, it’d say the blame for what doesn't falls squarely on her too. I think, mostly, the problems stem from her inexperience as a director and a constant need to be noticed, which led to the visual weirdness. “W.E.” isn’t 2/3 of a bad movie because it was directed by Madonna as a few might assume; it’s 2/3 of a bad movie AND it was directed by Madonna. And, despite appearances, those are two completely different, if equally loaded, statements.
Video
For “W.E.”, Madonna and cinematographer Hagden Bogdanski decided on a fairly flat, desatured palette, working in a world of cool blues, whites and blacks. Skin tones are pale, contrast is dim and the black level looks almost artificially weakened by design (appearing more bluish, than actually black). Shot on a mixture of Super16 and traditional anamorphic 35mm film, there’s an intentionally bipolar look to the image. At times excessively grainy and other slick but still generally soft. It’s tough to say how manipulated the image really is, and how much is intentional. I’m inclined to say all of it, and that although the 2.40:1 widescreen 1080p 24/fps AVC MPEG-4 high definition transfer doesn’t offer much in the way of rich texture or fine detail, that’s by design. Anchor Bay’s encode appears free of aggressive artifacts and banding, and the transfer shows no signs of edge enhancement or other unwanted digital tinkering. “W.E.” isn’t eye candy; it’s not a vibrant or shockingly sharp film. But I think the Blu-ray captures the intended look quite well, as strangely schizophrenic as that look seems sometimes.
Audio
The English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix (48kHz/24-bit) is equally good, but never great, and presumably an accurate representation of the quiet and mostly subdued nature of the original front-heavy sound design, which is fitting for the talky subject matter. The highlights of the track are the clean and intelligible dialogue and the soaring score by composer Abel Korzeniowski, who balances a winning combination of a full orchestra and simple piano. Rich and warm, the music is what makes the track memorable. Optional subtitles are available in English and Spanish.
Extras
A critical and commercial failure, pushed out to DVD and Blu-ray shortly after the film lost the lone Academy Award it was nominated for (costume design), it really isn’t a surprise that “W.E.” arrives on video with very few special features. DISC ONE: BLU-RAY In fact, despite the disc real estate of three platters, the first two discs of “W.E.” in this set are home to but one shared bonus—a monotonous making-of featurette featuring Madonna (and many other people), titled “The Making-of ‘W.E.’ with Madonna” (1.78:1 widescreen 480p, 22 minutes 36 seconds). At times both pretentious (the mixing of film stocks found in “W.E” is repeated here almost to a nauseating degree) and pathetically plain, this featurette is superficial at best, outright uninformative at worst. Really, those involved might’ve at least attempted to offer some insight into the work that went into the production, but they’re all so high-and-mighty and totally oblivious to the very obvious flaws of the film it’s almost amusing. Almost. The Blu-ray also contains the following pre-menu bonus trailers: - “Coriolanus” on Blu-ray and DVD (2.40:1 480p, 2 minutes 25 seconds). - “My Week with Marilyn” on Blu-ray and DVD (2.40:1 480p, 2 minutes). - “The Iron Lady” on Blu-ray and DVD (2.40:1 480p, 2 minutes 19 seconds). DISC TWO: DVD The second disc, full-retail DVD-9, includes “W.E.” in standard definition, presented in 2.40:1 anamorphic widescreen with English Dolby Digital 5.1 surround and optional English and Spanish subtitles. The making-of featurette and the same set of bonus trailers from the Blu-ray are repeated here. DISC THREE: DVD The final platter houses an iTunes-compatible digital copy of “W.E.” for playback on iPad, iPod, iPhone and AppleTV.
Packaging
Madonna’s “W.E” arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of The Weinstein Company and Weinstein Home Entertainment via Anchor Bay Home Entertainment, as a 3-disc “Blu-ray + DVD + Digital Copy” edition. The three discs are packaged in an Elite keep case, with the single layered BD-25 and Region 1-locked DVD-9 mounted on the spindle of a flip tray, and the iTunes compatible digital copy housed on a DVD-5 stuck clasp in the back of the case.
Overall
“W.E.” is a flawed film; it’s like three films in one, and two of those films are truly terrible. The other film (the period piece) is actually fairly good, and the production design and costumes are exquisite. But the tricky dual timeline narrative is ultimately handled poorly and the script is stuffed with stilted dialog, delivered by certain actors and actresses who give wildly uneven performances and one actress who transcends it all to deliver one of the most magnificently underrated female performances of 2011. The end result is a film that looks wonderful but is a chore to get through because of its constant shift in tone and overall quality. The blame falls, squarely, on director and writer Madonna (and perhaps, partly, also her co-author Alek Keshishian), having crafted a muddled movie with messages as mixed as her choice in film stocks. The Blu-ray release from Anchor Bay and The Weinstein Company features strong video and audio, both of which appear faithful to the source. “W.E.” isn’t very good, but perhaps not for the exact reason many would assume (at least, not only).
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