VENICE — With 10 English-language films in competition out of a total of 22 (with one "surprise film" that had still not been announced), many of them with star-studded casts, this year’s "Venice Film Festival" began to look like not just a competition for the Venice awards, but an early airing of several productions and performances with Oscar-winning potential.
The unprintable gag doing the rounds of "Fleet Street" as the news flowed in about the Prince of Wales’s affair with the twice-divorced Wallis Simpson was:
"It would never do for our monarch to be the third mate on an American tramp."
But Edward VIII did give up the throne "for the woman I love."
Madonna’s second feature film, the out-of-competition "W.E." (for Wallis and Edward), consists of two parallel stories:
- one of a young woman in modern-day Manhattan, who takes refuge from a loveless marriage by haunting the preview of a Windsor mega-auction at the establishment where she used to work, and in daydreaming about her namesake (her mother and grandmother were Wallis fans)
- the other, the story of Mrs. Simpson, her affair with the then-prince, and their later life together.
As the modern Wally, Abbie Cornish puts in a creditable performance, but her story is difficult to believe in.
And while the stylishly shot historical sequences attempt to rehabilitate Mrs. Simpson, they fail to address the fact that many at the time saw her above all as a convenient excuse for getting rid of a trivial, self-indulgent and weak man who was not up to the job of being king (or anything much else for that matter).
Edward’s successor George VI and his consort, Elizabeth, are portrayed as figures of fun — which won’t wash with fans of "The King’s Speech", let alone most historians of the period.
Bad timing.
Nonetheless, Andrea Riseborough is sensationally good in the part of Mrs. Simpson, and probably more fascinating than she ever was — unless you happened to be Edward ("David" to his friends).
source: nytimes
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