|
63
|
Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
There is little human interest or excitement. It isn't written that way. The music and the dialogue seem curiously even and muted, and there aren't the kinds of drama we expect in a biopic. Everyone is too restrained and discreet to expose themselves that way.
|
|
50
|
Boston Globe Ty Burr
W.E., her second effort after 2008's "Filth and Wisdom,'' tries awfully hard. In the end it tries our patience.
|
|
50
|
Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey
Madonna the director deserves a script better than the one Madonna the screenwriter handed off to her. The movie is full of incidents that don't quite cohere into a story - kind of like a Power Point presentation without a throughline.
|
|
42
|
Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum
The movie is a folly, a desultory vanity project for its director and co-writer. But for those very reasons, W.E., by world-renowned personage and lesser-known filmmaker Madonna, is not without twisted interest.
|
|
40
|
Los Angeles Times Betsy Sharkey
W.E., Madonna's second go at directing a feature film, leaves one wishing she'd find other creative outlets for those times when she's bored with the pop-star life.
|
|
40
|
The New York Times Manohla Dargis
The upshot is that instead of a film about a love that conquered a king and nearly undid a kingdom, Madonna has come up with a female friendship movie, which would be fine if she weren't busy trying to prove her art-film bona fides.
|
|
38
|
Washington Post Ann Hornaday
Conceived and directed by Madonna, W.E. is a gorgeous mess.
|
|
25
|
Rolling Stone Peter Travers
Here's Madge one more time doing something for which she is eminently unsuited directing.
|
|
25
|
San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle
Whatever else W.E. may be (lousy, a waste of time, tin-eared, sleep-inducing, occasionally laughable, etc.), it's sincere and ambitious.
|
|
20
|
Wall Street Journal John Anderson
The director's apparent blindness to the epic banality of her subjects suggests that the whole project is one royally misguided mess.
|
company.