The great dictator

She has already made quite an impact as an actress — few who have sat through her performances will readily forget the experience of seeing Madonna on screen.

Shanghai Surprise was dire, Body Of Evidence was laughable, and Swept Away was such a critical and commercial car crash that many assumed she would have to give up her filmic ambitions out of sheer embarrassment.

Madonna went on to direct a short movie, Filth And Wisdom, in 2008 about three friends with dead-end jobs who dream of better things.

One reviewer noted then: "Madonna has been a terrible actor in many, many films and now, fiercely aspirational as ever, she has graduated to being a terrible director."

But this summer Madonna is presenting herself as the serious film director of her first feature-length offering.

Her new film W.E is finished and will premiere at the Venice Film Festival in September, and arrive in cinemas later this year. But how good it will be?

Madonna hopes that this project will establish her artistic credibility and give her the success in movies which hasn't come her way since Evita 15 years ago.

The bad news for her, though, is that the buzz from a top secret test screening in New York last week is not entirely positive. The film doesn't make much sense — and looks more like a Chanel perfume advertisement than an £18 million (Dh105 million) movie ought to.

Harvey Weinstein — who has bought the distribution rights — was observed looking "thunderous" and "sour" as the preview audience marked their scores on approval index cards.

He is in the process of re-editing the film to try to make it more commercially viable, and says that it won't be ready to show to critics "for several months".

More commercial

He is known as Harvey Scissorhands for his love of cutting films to make them more commercial. As he said in an interview: "I'm not cutting for fun, I'm cutting for the s*** to work."

Madonna, now 52, whose control freakery is legendary, must be hating this part of the process. But, it seems, the film needs it.

"It's not a complete embarrassment for Madonna, and some of the sequences are spectacular, but some key elements are never explained," said a source at the screening last week.

"It's all about a woman, Wally, who is obsessed with Wallis Simpson, but we never find out why she cares about her in the first place.

"The script is really very so-so. It tries to suggest that Wallis Simpson gave up a lot to be with Edward in 1936, particularly her chance to have children, but the idea is never developed. It's all about the surface and the styling. There's no real narrative, and no heart."

It's a labour of love for Madonna, who has said that she is obsessed by the subject of the love affair between Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson.

She asked surviving friends and associates of Simpson, including socialite Nicky Haslam, to help her with information about her.

Auction

The film stars Australian actress Abbie Cornish as a New Yorker who becomes fascinated by an auction of the possessions of the Duchess of Windsor, as Wallis Simpson became known. Mrs S is played by Andrea Riseborough and Edward by James D'Arcy. James Fox plays George V and his son Laurence plays Bertie, Edward's younger brother (later George VI).

As ever when it comes to Madonna, the creative process has been fraught with dramas. Producer David Parfitt, the esteemed safe pair of hands who helped to guide Shakespeare In Love to the screen, appeared to decide that life was too short to work with Madonna not long after starting work on W.E , as did leading casting expert Nina Gold. They cited "creative differences" and the word was that Madonna did not understand the need to "collaborate" or "delegate".

Meanwhile actress Margo Stilley pulled out, wishing everyone else "good luck" after the experience of working with Madonna for a few days. "I had the role, but we had artistic differences," Stilley said. "She is really something. I wish the cast luck because they are all really talented.'

She's not the only one to leave. Ewan McGregor who was to have played Edward, and Vera Farmiga (George Clooney's ruthless love interest in Up In The Air) who was to have been Mrs Simpson also quit.

By her own admission, Madonna is not easy to work with: "To me, the whole process of being a brushstroke in someone else's painting is a little difficult," she has said. "I'm used to being in charge of everything."

W.E was supposed to be shown at the Cannes film festival this spring, but was withdrawn from competition just before the festival opened.

Once again, it is being edited and polished up. The question now is, can Harvey Weinstein — whose Midas touch has brought him a clutch of Oscars as the man behind Shakespeare In Love and The King's Speech — make her look good?

— Daily Mail