W.E.

Ents24 Rating

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Genre: Drama / Romance
Director: Madonna
Running time: 119 mins
Released: 20th January 2012

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About W.E.

A sumptuous-looking drama about the parallels between an ordinary woman and Wallis Simpson. Wally Winthrop (Abbie Cornish) is a lonely, vapid trophy wife living in New York in 1998. She becomes obsessed with the life of Wallis Simpson (Andrea Riseborough), when Simpson's possessions go on sale at an auction. Simpson's story is told simultaneously with Wally's: we see Simpson's disastrous marriage to her first husband, and then Wally's unhappy trips to the doctor as she contemplates having children. The world was shocked when Prince Edward VIII (James D'arcy) abdicated the throne so that he could marry Simpson, a twice-divorced commoner from Baltimore, and their relationship becomes the focus of the film and the thing that Wally fixates on most. She believes that theirs is the ultimate love story, but flashbacks show their gradual descent from glamorous passionate beginnings into empty extravagance.