If Madonna thought switching to directing would make a difference, she was wrong.
When it comes to film, Madonna can’t catch a break. W.E., her second feature as a writer-director, arrives in theatres this Friday on a tidal wave of critical scorn. By now, the Material Girl should be used to the dissing. For most of her career, Madonna’s big-screen efforts have earned her the kind of acid-drenched reviews usually reserved for torture porn and the comedies of Rob Schneider. Her attempts at acting even won her a 2000 Golden Raspberry (i.e. Razzie) Award for Worst Actress of the Century. And that was before she did that wretched remake of Lina Wertmüller’s Swept Away.
If Madonna thought switching to directing would make a difference, she was wrong. Her first feature, 2008’s determinedly grotty Filth and Wisdom, was beaten up by the critics. Although a glossier production, W.E. has fared no better. It was already a festival-circuit laughingstock when it turned up at TIFF last fall.
What makes Madonna persist with her filmmaking folly? Obviously, she has a movie jones. Just look at her groundbreaking use of music videos to build and reshape her image. Or her Marilyn Monroe fetish. Or her choice of husbands and lovers: actor-directors Sean Penn and Warren Beatty, director-writer Guy Ritchie. Besides, she’s had just enough encouragement over the years to believe she’ll one day conquer the medium.
It all started in 1985, when she played the title role in Susan Seidelman’s sweet little mistaken-identity comedy, Desperately Seeking Susan. The film’s intended star was Rosanna Arquette, playing a mousy suburbanite taking a walk on the new-wave wild side. But Madonna stole the show from her as the embodiment of that wild side: a freeloading free spirit with cruelly teased hair and a penchant for fingerless lace gloves. The picture was released on the heels of Madonna’s breakthrough second album, Like a Virgin, and her film character felt like an extension of her playfully trashy pop-star persona. As Susan, Madonna was playing Madonna. And that has been both the strength and weakness of all her films ever since.
Eager to expand her range, she next starred in the misbegotten romantic caper Shanghai Surprise, which could’ve been titled Arquette’s Revenge. It quickly proved that, while Madonna could steal a movie, she couldn’t carry one—not even with new hubby Penn doing most of the heavy lifting. Its resounding failure was a harbinger of just about every other Madonna flick that would follow.
There were a few exceptions. By the time of the revealing 1991 tour documentary Madonna: Truth or Dare, she was venting her bitterness at Hollywood while, ironically, giving her best film performance to date. Unfettered by a script and a role, she came alive as a brazen pop prima donna who played shamelessly to the camera, whether fellating a Vichy water bottle or lying sadly by her mother’s grave.
It felt like a turning point and with her next feature, Penny Marshall’s baseball comedy A League of Their Own, she garnered her best reviews since Susan. But Marshall, like Seidelman, cannily capitalized on her natural tough-cookie persona and used her sparingly.
Then came 1996’s Evita, in which the girl finally got to do what she does best: sing, dance and vogue. She was perfectly cast as the Eva Perón of the Tim Rice–Andrew Lloyd Webber musical—half preening egotist, half working-class heroine. Even if she sang the part more with mechanical efficiency than real heart and soul, it still won her a Golden Globe. But then she unwisely went back to straight acting. Her most recent star vehicle, 2002’s Ritchie-directed Swept Away, was such a disaster that she retreated behind the camera to lick her wounds.
Now, a decade on, she’s shown us she’s no more gifted as a director. Maybe the best way for Madonna to express her movie love would be to use her wealth and clout to produce other people’s work—give some real talent a leg up. By continuing to make her own films, she isn’t doing cinema fans, or even Madonna fans, any favours. I can think of only one person who might find pleasure in her ongoing flops. She’s probably not that mean-spirited, but it’s entertaining to think that somewhere in L.A., Rosanna Arquette is reading the vicious reviews for W.E. and laughing.
