Diana - Movie Review

Rating: 2.5 out of 5

While this odd biopic is a real mess, it's not quite the cinematic disaster snootier critics claim it is. Essentially fan fiction, the script spins a story that has only the vaguest basis in fact, drawing much of its dialog from screenwriter Jeffreys' and book author Kate Snell's imaginations. And if what these people say to each other wasn't so laughably silly, the film's genuinely intriguing themes might have emerged with more force.

We pick up the story in 1995, after Diana (Watts) has been separated from Prince Charles for three years. She still hasn't moved on romantically, and spends most evenings alone in Kensington Palace, making beans on toast and quietly crying herself to sleep. So when she meets heart surgeon Hasnat Khan (Andrews), she's relieved that he doesn't treat her like a princess. Over the next two years, their romance develops in secret because Hasnat is a very private man and Diana is the most famous woman on earth. Fed up with the intrusive paparazzi, Hasnat puts the brakes on their relationship. So Diana uses her friend Dodi Fayed (Anvar) to provide misleading headlines and spark Hasnat's jealousy.

Of course, we know their love is doomed for another key reason: the film is bookended by scenes in Paris on the fateful evening of 31 August 1997. But even if this romance has clearly been fictionalised, it offers some intriguing themes that catch our sympathies, mainly due to an understated performance from Watts that occasionally catches Diana with remarkable detail. So it's frustrating that Khan is portrayed as such an icy, uninteresting figure, which means that Andrews never generates any chemistry with Watts.

But even the side characters are sketchy. As Diana's friends, James and Stevenson at least provide some proper interaction. Other key figures are essentially irrelevant, because the script is more interested in corny sentiment and sudsy melodrama than anything more provocative. Director Hirschbiegel (Downfall) never digs beneath the screenplay's blindingly obvious surfaces, limiting the characters' flirtation to trite quotations from poets and philosophers. So in the end the film merely reminds us of everything we already know about Diana. But it would have been so much more interesting to really explore what it was like to be her. Or to be in love with her.

Facts and Figures

Year: 2013

Genre: Dramas

Run time: 113 mins

In Theaters: Friday 20th September 2013

Box Office USA: $0.3M

Box Office Worldwide: $331.6 thousand

Distributed by: Eone Films

Production compaines: Ecosse Films, Le Pacte, Scope Pictures, Film i Väst, Filmgate Films

Reviews

Contactmusic.com: 2.5 / 5

Rotten Tomatoes: 8%
Fresh: 8 Rotten: 88

IMDB: 5.4 / 10

Cast & Crew

Director: Oliver Hirschbiegel

Producer: Robert Bernstein, Douglas Rae

Screenwriter: Stephen Jeffreys

Starring: Naomi Watts as Princess Diana, Naveen Andrews as Hasnat Khan, Charles Edwards as Patrick Jephson, Douglas Hodge as Paul Burrell, Lee Asquith-Coe as Police Officer, Cas Anvar as Dodi Fayed, Geraldine James as Oonagh Toffolo, Juliet Stevenson as Sonia, Laurence Belcher as William, Michael Byrne as Christian Barnard, Douglas Hodge as Paul Burrell, Mary Stockley as Assistant, Chris Cowlin as Paparazzi, Daniel Pirrie as Jason Fraser, Raffaello Degruttola as Mario Brenna

Also starring: Art Malik, Douglas Rae