Trailer for Madonna's royal scandal flick W.E. debuts (+video)

Madonna isn't a name that's synonymous with movie magic, so it's no great surprise that her latest directorial effort has had a critical mauling.

Madge's semi-historical drama W.E. received a barrage of scathing reviews when it debuted at the Venice Film Festival back in September.

"The script is the first problem. Co-written with Alek Keshishian, it's laden with cliches and clunky exposition from the off, with some moments drawing laughs from the Venice audience," cried The Playlist's Oliver Lyttelton.

The Guardian's Xan Brooks sniped: "What an extraordinarily silly, preening, fatally mishandled film this is.

"Her direction is so all over the shop that it barely qualifies as direction at all. W.E. gives us slo-mo and jump cuts and a crawling crane shot up a tree in Balmoral, but they are all just tricks without a purpose."

Not that her Madgesty will give a loathsome hydrangea what the critics think.

"I know that I did the best that I could do," the Hung Up singer told indieWIRE.

"I pay attention to reviews where I know people are reviewing my work. When they're letting me, the person, the human being, get in the way, then I don't really give it much credence. At the end of the day, I made the film to be judged as a film. Not for people to compare it to me."

She added, "I understand that that's going to happen. I knew going into this that people were going to sometimes get their opinion of me mixed up and muddled in with my work. So of course I always appreciate it when people really review my film and stick to the film."

Starring James D'Arcy as King Edward VIII and Andrea Riseborough as his twice-divorced American lover Wallis Simpson (for whom he abdicated his throne for in 1936), the movie focuses on Wally Winthrop, played by Abbie Cornish, and her obsession with the royal and his taboo relationship.

So has the former lady of perpetual commotion really got a free range celluloid turkey on her hands?

Check out the trailer below and judge for yourselves:

W.E. opens on December 9 in New York and Los Angeles, and on January 23 in the UK.

- Blogger Bites Back