W. E.

Oooh! What pretty clothes! What pretty jewels! And such nice slow motion shots!

Well....the acting is quite good, actually.

Overall, Madonna's vanity project (not my words, but many a critic's) is way too hectic to tell a decent story. It does try to with the current day story of Wally, neglected wife by her doctor husband. She is strangely obsessed with the love story of King Edward and Wallis Simpson, as her mother and grandmother were before her. So much so that she will eventually go to Paris to meet with Mohamed Al-Fayed because he has hundreds of letters written by Wallis Simpson that she simply must! read! The scene of the actual first meeting is somewhat ridiculous. She tells him she wants to know what she gave up for him, as everyone else was so interested in what he gave up for her. Al-Fayed then does the classic, I-never-thought-of-if-that-way line.

*eye-roll*

The story of Edward and Wallis is told so fitfully it does not even tell a comprehensive story. It only shows parties and paparazzi and desperate looking people. To me, this would have been the more interesting  tale because it has the potential of being a tragedy worth telling.

But, oh what pretty clothes!

4/10

Anonymous

So, according to this film by Roland Emmerich (and from what I understand it reflects Emmerich's beliefs) William Shakespeare's plays where actually written by Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, played by Rhys Ifans (in a surprisingly good performance, I only remember ever seeing him play idiots and druggies).

When the Earl solicits a lesser known playwright to stage plays that he actually wrote himself, the man agrees to do so. The play bill fails to mention any author name. When the performance is a great success and the audience cries for the playwright to come out on stage to be celebrated, the rather dimwitted William Shakespeare, an actor himself and always slightly drunk, hogs the spotlight and takes his bows.

Shakespeare is portrayed by Rafe Spall. This may actually be my favorite performance of the film, which is heavily populated by many a brilliant actor. One other wonderful portrayal is that of the (old) Queen Elizabeth I, by the great Vanessa Redgrave. Her younger self is played by her daughter Joely Richardson.

The film jumps back and forth in time, showing the story of the plays and the (alleged) rouse as well as Edward de Vere's younger years, during which he had an affair and a child with Queen Elizabeth I.

Do I believe that the story as told here has any merit? Not really. Do I care that Emmerich's (and the film's screen writer's) beliefs are probably wrong? Nope. The film is entertaining enough the way it is. You get war and intrigues, illicit affairs spawning bastards and the literary society in uproar.

7/10