W.E.

W.E. (stylised as W./E.) is a 2011 British historical romantic drama film written and directed by Madonna. It stars Abbie Cornish, Andrea Riseborough, Oscar Isaac, Richard Coyle and James D'Arcy. The screenplay was co-written by Alek Keshishian, who previously worked with Madonna on her 1991 documentary Truth or Dare and two of her music videos. The film was panned by critics and was a box office bomb. However, it managed to earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Costume Design . The film tells the story of two women separated by more than six decades. In 1998, lonely New Yorker Wally Winthrop is obsessed with King Edward VIII's abdication of the British throne for the woman he loved, American divorcée Wallis Simpson. But Wally's research, including several visits to the Sotheby's auction of the Windsor Estate, reveals that the couple's life together was not as perfect as she thought. Weaving back and forth in time, W.E. intertwines Wally's journey of discovery in New York with the story of Wallis and Edward, from the early days of their romance to the unraveling of their lives in the decades that followed.