There’s a “noble tradition” of pop stars “putting on extravaganzas” in public toilets, said Ed Potton in The Times. “Never before, though, have we had a WC this full of VIPs.”
Madonna’s new 14-minute short film “Confessions II”, which marks the release of her latest album, features a “full-throttle celebrity perv-rave” in a nightclub loo packed with famous faces from Richard E. Grant to Benedict Cumberbatch. The Queen of Pop has delivered the kind of OTT, “bells-and-whistles music video” that seemed to be “on the way out”.
‘Hide the cocaine!’
In much the same way Madonna’s “Vogue” music video became “shorthand” for “‘pointy tits’” thanks to her pink conical bra, “Confessions II” will be remembered as the “vagina laser video”, said Zoe Williams in The Guardian. This time, the star must traverse a shadowy forest dodging green laser beams that fire from the dancers’ crotches in a symbol of “life force and unstoppable orgone energy”.
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In one of the “clever scenes, Madonna literally morphs” into Julia Garner – the actor who is set to play her in her “long-gestating, self-directed biographical film”, said Joey Nolfi in Entertainment Weekly. She also “leans even more into embracing artists” who have followed her lead, such as Sabrina Carpenter. “The baton isn’t passed as much as it’s entrusted to artists who directly (Garner) and indirectly (Carpenter) walk in Madonna’s light.”
Later, she storms into the club bathroom where Chelsea footballers Cole Palmer and João Pedro “look around in alarm” from the urinal “as you would if the Queen of Pop sashayed past when you were having a wazz”, said Potton in The Times. “Hide the cocaine!” she sings before the camera cuts to Kate Moss flipping her hair in the mirror and dancing in slow-mo. Cumberbatch delivers some “textbook dad dancing”; “cruelly dressed” in a suit, he looks like “a City trader who has stumbled into a cool party and whipped off his tie to try and blend in”.
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‘Gloriously over the top’
“Confessions II” is more than just a “flashy, star-studded commercial” for Madonna’s new album, said Nolfi in Entertainment Weekly. “It’s a powerful meditation on her legacy, her future, and how the world sees her as she reaches a new dawn in a storied life that’s largely played out in arenas beyond her control.”
The film will have “generated exactly the response she will have hoped for”, said Dan Wakeford in The Independent. Cameos from the eclectic assortment of celebrities have us “agog, debating who we are most thrilled to see sharing a frame”. But she’s also created a dance floor where “barriers between worlds have come down entirely”. The inclusion of the prestigious actor Cumberbatch is a “deliberate provocation”, telling us “high culture and club culture are the same culture” and it’s “cool to include someone who has no business being there”.
In its first 24 hours the film amassed just 1.2 million views on YouTube, far behind BTS’ “Butter”, which “racked up 108.2 million views on its first day in 2021”, said Potton in The Times. But “impact is not just about YouTube clicks” and various sequences from the dream-like film are sure to be “regurgitated endlessly” on TikTok. “There are signs that the event video could be on its way back.”
Of course, there have been “predictable snarks” about how Madonna should be behaving more appropriately for her 67 years. “Nonsense. Raucous, baffling and gloriously over the top, this film is exactly what she should be doing.”
