W.E.

W.E. - Dir. Madonna (2011)

"I have never known one person so utterly possessed by another as he was by her."

Madonna has made an indelible mark on pop culture as one of the most successful pop singers of all time. Yet, she was never able to achieve the same success in the film industry, despite her larger-than-life stage persona. Though she appeared in hit films like Dick Tracy and A League of Their Own, Madonna will be inexorably linked to critically derided flops like Body of Evidence and Swept Away, directed by her then-husband Guy Ritchie. With acting not panning out, Madonna decided to try her luck behind the camera and made her directorial debut with 2008's Filth and Wisdom. A dark comedy set in a world of S&M, strip clubs, and drug addicts; it also received poor reviews from the critics.

After going for seedy and shocking, Madonna tries to court the highbrow arthouse audience with her sophomore effort, W.E. The film is based on the controversial love affair between King Edward VIII and a twice-divorced American named Wallis Simpson. Their relationship was glimpsed partly in The King's Speech as Edward abdicated the throne in order to marry Wallis, much to the dismay of the royal family and an entire country. The couple was also dogged by rumors of being Nazi sympathizers after visiting Hitler in 1937. Madonna herself had been fascinated by their story for years, relating how the very mention of their name at a soiree was like throwing a Molotov cocktail into the room.

Rather than tell a straight biopic about Wallis Simpson, Madonna relates her story through the struggles of a young socialite in 1998. Wally Winthrop (Abbie Cornish) seems to have a life little girls dream about. She's married to a successful doctor and lives in a ritzy apartment in Manhattan. Yet, Wally is unsuccessful in her attempts to get pregnant. Even worse, her husband, William (Richard Coyle), no longer desires to have children and becomes physically and mentally abusive. Wally becomes obsessed with her namesake when a collection of personal items belonging to Edward and Wallis are put up for auction at Sotheby's. There, Wally becomes friends with a Russian security guard named Evgeni (Oscar Isaac), who happens to be the sensitive type that plays Rachmaninoff on the piano. Madonna intercuts Wally's plights with those of Wallis (Andrea Riseborough), who suffered abuse at the hands of her first husband before leaving her second husband for Edward (James D'Arcy). Despite the love they share, the royal family refuses to accept Wallis.

It's clear why Madonna chose to tell the story of Wallis and Edward from the point-of-view of Wallis. Both women have seen their marriages become tabloid fodder and both have spent their lives fending off paparazzi and unwanted publicity. However, the screenplay by Madonna and Alek Keshishian, the director of her hit documentary Truth or Dare, lacks any sort of subtlety as evidenced by an opening sequence where a naked and pregnant Wallis is brutally beaten on a bathroom floor and left in a pool of blood. Worse yet, it's exceedingly dull with an endless stream of mopey melodrama. Then, W.E. gets downright laughable when the heroines cross space and time to share furtive glances and fortune cookie platitudes. Another sequence sees a dour party thrown by the controversial couple turned into a drug fueled rave as the dapper denizens trip out on Benzedrine. The anachronistic "Pretty Vacant" by the Sex Pistols plays over the sequence, which seems to contradict Madonna's hypothesis that Wallis was a woman of unsung substance.

When the film isn't muddled by Madonna's messy direction, it actually looks pretty good thanks to the production design by Martin Childs (Shakespeare in Love) and the costumes by Arianne Phillips (A Single Man), both of whom are Oscar winners. Andrea Riseborough makes a fine accounting for herself in the role of Wallis Simpson. Strong and opinionated, it's easy to see why someone might give up an empire for her. Too bad she wasn't given better material to work with. It's also a shame that none of the other actors give any sort of a memorable performance. Abbie Cornish, James D'Arcy, and Oscar Isaac are all bland while the father-son duo of James and Laurence Fox (who play King George V and the stuttering Bertie) deserved more screen time.

Madonna may have left her mark in the music industry, but she has yet to make an admirable impression in her nascent career as a director. W.E. is plagued by questionable editing, unsightly scene composition, and a script that is a downright bore.

Rating: * (*****)

Sherlock Holmes

Sherlock Holmes - Dir. Guy Ritchie (2009)


Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s iconic detective, Sherlock Holmes, gets a new coat of paint for the 21st century in this latest interpretation. Just like the current visage of Santa Claus was largely a creation of Coca-Cola, the image of Holmes in a deerstalker hat, tweed cape with a calabash pipe was honed through various film and television adaptations. The hat and cape are gone and the pipe was appropriated by Hans Landa. Instead, filmmakers went back to the source material. Doyle’s original Holmes was depicted as unabashedly arrogant about his immense intellect and was also something of an opium sot. The drug use barely alluded to, but many of the great detective’s eccentricities are on full display.

This iteration of Holmes is perfectly played by Robert Downey, Jr. Even at a younger age, it’s hard to imagine Downey headlining a big-budget action franchise, but you can’t picture either Sherlock Holmes or Iron Man without him. Downey exceeds as the egotistical Holmes whose deductive skills and orderly mind are no comparison to his slovenly living habits. Holmes’ acumen as a martial artist and bare-knuckle boxer are briefly mentioned in a pair of Doyle’s stories, but they take the forefront here. Holmes can not only break down a person’s entire life by a mere glance, he can break someone down physically the same way. Holmes’s sidekick, Dr. Watson, is equally reimagined from the overweight bumbler to friggin’ Jude Law. He’s a man of action on equal footing with his partner.

Holmes and Watson’s relationship is soured when the latter moves out of their Baker Street townhouse to wed his fiancée Mary Morstan. Holmes can’t abide that Watson would wish for company other than himself. However, bigger happenings are afoot when the two apprehend Lord Blackwood (Mark Strong) for the ritualistic murders of several young women. After being hanged and pronounced dead by Watson, Blackwood returns from the grave and confounds his adversary with his seemingly supernatural powers. In addition, Holmes is befuddled by the return of Irene Adler (Rachel McAdams), a notorious thief and one of the very few to outwit Holmes. If Holmes and Watson are Batman and Robin, then Adler is their Catwoman.

For a mystery-laden potboiler, the last person you’d want to hire as director would be Guy Ritchie. As a filmmaker, he’s all style and no substance. As a writer, he’s a one-trick pony. Ritchie debuted with the gangster farce Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels then repeated the same formula in his sophomore effort Snatch. After striking out with the much-maligned Swept Away (starring then-wife Madonna), Ritchie returned to the ever-diminishing well with Revolver and RocknRolla. No, Ritchie couldn’t direct a Victorian-era drama to save his life, but he can direct a slick modernized blockbuster. Ritchie’s trademark trickery (fast-forwards, rewinds, slow motion, quick cuts) work as a way into the labyrinthine mind of our hero. This is also the best looking film of Ritchie’s career thanks to Oscar-winning cinematographer Philippe Rousselot (A River Runs Through It, Interview with the Vampire).

The story itself isn’t as clever as it makes out to be, but the lead actors are good enough to make you buy into it all without question. Downey and Law play off each other incredibly well and Mark Strong always adds a level of credibility to whatever film that’s lucky to have him. Rachel McAdams, unfortunately, isn’t up to the task of keeping pace with her castmates. She’s good in contemporary roles (Mean Girls, State of Play), but sticks out like a sore thumb in a period piece.

Despite, a few shortcomings, Sherlock Holmes is one of the better Hollywood offerings of 2009. It’s a fun popcorn movie and the beginnings of a promising franchise. I’m looking forward to seeing who they might cast as Professor Moriarty. Anthony Hopkins? Bill Nighy? Is Gary Oldman free?

Rating: ***

Mister Lonely

Mister Lonely - Dir. Harmony Korine (2008)


Harmony Korine burst onto the cinematic landscape as the co-writer to the controversial, unflinching Kids. He made his debut as director with Gummo, a redneck David Lynch-esque look in a small Southern town. He followed that up with Julien Donkey Boy, Korine’s entry into the Dogme 95 movement. Both films cemented Korine’s status as a polarizing filmmaker. Some critics lauded him as a unique voice others considered his films incomprehensible and reprehensible. Korine’s career was derailed by drug problems and after a nine-year gap, he returns with Mister Lonely, co-written with his brother Avi.

Mister Lonely opens with a scene of a Michael Jackson impersonator (Diego Luna) riding around a go-kart track on a yellow mini-bike as Bobby Vinton’s hit song plays over the credits. This is exactly the kind of thing Korine is the master of, finding beauty in the strange and unsettling. This faux-King of Pop earns a living in Paris and meets a Marilyn Monroe impersonator (Samantha Morton) while performing at an old folks’ home. Marilyn invites Michael to the Scottish countryside where she and other celebrity look-alikes have formed their own commune. They have a James Dean, a Madonna, a Buckwheat, the Three Stooges, the Pope, Queen Elizabeth II, Sammy Davis Jr., and a foul-mouthed Abraham Lincoln. Marilyn has a daughter, a doppelganger of Shirley Temple, and is married to an insensitive, piggish “Charlie Chaplin.” Oddly, their ranks also include a Little Red Riding Hood (played by Korine’s wife, Rachel). There’s also a completely unrelated subplot involving filmmaker Werner Herzog (in a scene stealing role) as a priest in South America charged with airdropping food to poor villages. One of his nuns falls out of the plane, but miraculously survives, an act of God, no doubt.

This quiet commune acts as a microcosm for our own society. The impersonators look to fashion their own idyllic fantasy world, but find the realities of life creeping in. Their sheep get sick and need to be put down. Despite creating alternate personas, those in the community still suffer from all the same neuroses and jealousies as anyone else. For all of Korine’s intentions and best laid plans, Mister Lonely feels like two incomplete films slapped together. There’s thoughtfulness and tragedy to be found as well as tedium and pretension.

Rating: **