W.E. (2011)

Critic Reviews

• Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune

  With "W.E." Madonna gorges on glamour, architectural porn and haute couture but starves the mind.

• Lisa Kennedy, Denver Post

  The film is stylishly shot. And, in weaving the stories of Wally and Wallis, Madonna trusts viewers to move from mood to mood, era to era without overexplanation, the way music-video editing long ago trained us to.

• Bill Goodykoontz, Arizona Republic

  The production is nice looking, and telling the Edward-and-Wallis story from her side is an interesting idea, but it's one that Madonna simply can't pull off here.

• Ann Hornaday, Washington Post

  A movie that's less about people than the fetishistic obsession with style.

• Tom Long, Detroit News

  "W.E." is not awful. It looks quite nice at times, and Riseborough delivers an exquisite if overdrawn performance as Wallis.

• Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle

  As a director, Madonna has flair without ability, but she does have flair.

• Matt Brunson, Creative Loafing

  Truth be told, the film isn't THAT bad, and if it had been directed by an unknown rather than a controversial media icon, it might have been more charitably dismissed as an ambitious failure.

• Staci Layne Wilson, Yahoo! Movies

  Melodramatic to be sure, and arty camp to boot - W.E. succeeds in equal part ennui and emotion. Like it, loathe it or lump it altogether, one thing fashionistas will not want to fast forward through is the making-of featurette.

• Philip Martin, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

  not a completely horrible film ...there's one sequence - an anachronistic and jarring one in which Wallis Simpson ... dances with a Masai tribesman to the Sex Pistols' "Pretty Vacant" - that I think indicates that Madge has real potential as a director.

• John Beifuss, Commercial Appeal (Memphis, TN)

  An ambitiously conceived and beautifully designed and costumed but disjointed work; each scene is impressive on its own, but the movie -- like its heroines? -- lacks a coherent identity.

• Marty Mapes, Movie Habit

  Madonna doesn't appear in W.E. but her artistic sensibilities are on display at every turn.

• Sean Means, Salt Lake Tribune

  Tonally and emotionally all over the map, Madonna wants to celebrate Wallis' and Edward's martini-shaking high living while also wallowing in her hidden pain.

• Justin Strout, Orlando Weekly

  Hear us out, Madge: Next time, go with what you know.

• Catherine Bray, Film4

  Enough already with the famous-equals-feminist school of female icons - it's not enough to simply dress well.

• Kimberley Jones, Austin Chronicle

  The coda plays like one long and petulant foot stomp about sacrifice and due recognition of said sacrifice, and in that, too, it's impossible not to tease the thread back to its maker, striking a pose as misunderstood icon.

• Joe Williams, St. Louis Post-Dispatch

  It's hard to hate a movie that escorts us to such lovely locales, but instead of marking the territory as her own, Madonna has directed a potentially provocative story like a virgin.

• Shawn Levy, Oregonian

  We can't take overly seriously the woes of folks whose silverware costs more than most people's homes, at least not as presented here, with their wealth depicted as a kind of moral state.

• Duane Dudek, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

  Neither story comes alive, in large part because the film never stops moving long enough to let them.

• Connie Ogle, Miami Herald

  A movie more concerned with how things look than how they feel.

• Chris Hewitt (St. Paul), St. Paul Pioneer Press

  The big problem is that "W.E." has too much ground to cover, including three marriages for Wallis and one for Wally.

Read all 22 critic reviews