George the third? George, the bl**dy third?
As a manager of journalists, one of the points I always hammer home to our scribes is that if they make one mistake over accuracy, the readers will automatically think the rest of the article is nonsense.
Thus, when Madonna's W.E. proclaimed that George III had died in 1936 it made a film, which was already struggling to stay afloat, seep into the quicksand.
The shame of it is that I really wanted to like W.E.
I have something of a soft spot for Madonna. Many of her 1980s tunes were the backdrop for my courting of Mrs W for starters.
I can't help but admire the way she came from a working class background and yet has become one of the most famous women in the world by being ahead of fashion.
And, of course, she is always getting a kick-in from the critics so that makes me want to do the gallnt thing and stand up for her.
But this time her self-indulgence has gone too far. W.E is a ghastly mess of a movie.
We'd gone into screen 2 at Nottingham Cineworld expecting a rare perspective on the romance of the 20th century from the side of Wallis Simpson (portrayed by Andrea Riseborough).
And in a way we did...but it was diluted by a parallel modern-day story of a young woman in Manhattan (Abbie Cornish) who just happened to be called Wally in memory of Mrs S.
The Cornish character is a former worker at Sotheby's who is entranced by her namesake to the point of spending virtually every waking hour at an exhibition about them.
But aside of that fact that her marriage is on the rocks and she embarks on an affair, the connection between her and the original Wallis is tenuous.
W.E. mashes the two stories together in a most confusing fashion. After a while, Wallis starts to appear to Wally in daydreams just giving the impression that the poor girl is becoming demented.
Meanwhile there are various flashes to times in the well known history of Edward and Mrs Simpson which are oddly out of order, combined with the very occasional glimpse of genuine footage of the time.
So we had a boring plot which we couldn't follow. Consequence? Mrs W fell asleep.
I stuck with it but only because I had my zzzzzs during Underworld: Awakening.
W.E. was piffle and those who gave it a Golden Globe should take a long hard look at themselves.
After all, if the score was so good how come Wallis Simpson was dancing, at one stage, to the tune of the Sex Pistols?
Yes, that is as barmy as it was.
Laughs: None
Jumps: None
Vomit: None
Nudity: A couple of scenes early on, including a quite nasty one which involved domestic violence.
Rating: 2/10
0 Comments