Diana (2013)

Diana is a complete and utter catastrophe.

Instead of taking the most interesting aspects of Princess Diana's life and revolving a sort of character study around them, this movie chose the easy route. It's a romantic film about a rich person who falls in love with another rich person and one of them just so happens to be Princess Diana.

Our title character is played by Naomi Watts, a fine actress with many profound roles under her belt, but sadly she is just no good as Diana. While they certainly got the hair and wardrobe correct, she just can't BE Princess Diana. The character is horribly written, selfish, manipulative and surprisingly stupid with no sense of presence or dynamic sensibility, it really is some of the worst romantic movie writing ever put to screen. Even if Watts had given the best performance of her life, it still wouldn't have made the character a convincing movie heroine.

Romantic interest Hasnat Khan is the only interesting or dynamic character in the whole movie. This is a man who's torn between his heart, his job, his faith and his family, but the horrible screenplay only serves to have him whine endlessly. The actor is really trying to make something work here but the script is just too much of a quagmire of clichés and melodrama.

Director Oliver Hirschbiegel who made the fantastic Downfall back in 2004 achieved the impossible, he made you sympathise with the Nazis. Through intense drama and character building he achieved a real intensity of characters working through strife. But this film is completely missing anything that made Downfall the masterpiece that it is, this movie feels like something made for television.

After viewing Diana I had a thought, perhaps it was impossible to make a convincing biopic about Princess Diana, perhaps it was hubris to ever try. By glossing over everything that made her life so pronounced (her relationship and breakup with Prince Charles, her humanitarian work and eventually the suspicious circumstances around her death) it made the work incredibly dull, but perhaps if they did involve the more risqué occurrences it would have made controversy impossible to avoid.

Fmovies: This was a beautiful film. I really enjoyed because I had no expectations. For me this is a love story not the greatest but it touched me. Naomi Watts was great as always and you can really feel the chemistry between the actors. People say what was the point of this film ?? the point was to give us a glimpse of Diana s life not the whole story of course. You really get to see it through her eyes. How she struggles with being an official person and what comes with that. I do not think Naomi made a mistake by taking this roll because she did a great job. Yes Naomi has the worst wig ever in this film! but who cares just enjoy the great acting and the love story/Murre Macca

On paper, DIANA had everything going for it: the biopic had lined up one of the finest actresses working today for the title role (Naomi Watts), and paired her with a serious-minded director (Oliver Hirschbiegel) who had turned Adolf Hitler's final days into a gripping, powerful drama (Downfall)... there was even a precedent set by The Iron Lady, which proves that a biopic can be mediocre and/or take liberties with its subject and still provide room to think, feel, and appreciate the pure strength and power of the performances on display. Not so with DIANA, sadly.

Watts plays the tragically doomed people's princess just as her marriage to Prince Charles is properly disintegrating. Left with a husband in name but not in fact, Diana tries to figure out how to redefine herself independently of her estranged Royal Family. The answer, apparently, is to fall in love with heart surgeon Hasnat Khan (Naveen Andrews), who inspires her to do more and better with the media attention lavished so excessively upon her.

The senseless tragedy of Diana's death in a car accident, hunted down by media to her very end, looms large over the entire film, as well it should - but it's not the only tragedy that befalls it. That dubious honour belongs to Stephen Jeffreys' script, which is full of unrealistic characters and ponderous dialogue. For all of Watts' valiant efforts, there isn't much wit and soul to her Diana. The cunning ingenuity she displays in her battle against the Royal Palace in the first ten minutes of the film fades away rather too quickly, leaving her to be defined almost entirely in terms of a soppy, soapy love story that never really takes flight.

Any depth of character or charitable intent that she's given is connected to her growing love for Hasnat: a reductive and regrettable approach if ever there was one. It doesn't help that Hasnat is portrayed in so frustrating a way. Andrews is just as hamstrung by the script as Watts, forced to deliver painfully awkward and stilted lines while playing some kind of spoilt man-child who alternates between throwing tantrums and pleading for Diana to understand the inexplicable predicament he believes himself to be in.

Anyone searching for depth and complexity here will be sorely disappointed. DIANA provides few, if any, real insights into a public figure who suffered some of the greatest slings, arrows and presumptions attributable to media speculation and persecution. Rather than clearing away some of those cobwebs and claptrap, this melodramatic biopic adds to them: reducing a complex, troubled human being trapped in extraordinary circumstances to the shallow, unsympathetic female lead in a badly-written, utterly banal romantic drama. If there were a greater tragedy than Diana's untimely death, it's the fact that she's forced to live on in this film.

Diana fmovies. DIANA was almost universally panned on its release in September, and continues to attract negative comments from users. In truth it is not as bad as it was made out to be, even though some of the details seem implausible (would Diana (Naomi Watts) be able to leave Kensington Palace on her nocturnal visits to Hasnat (Naveen Andrews) so easily, without being discovered or hounded by reporters?) Nonetheless Oliver Hirschbiegel's film does a competent job of portraying the sheer loneliness of Diana's existence in Kensington Palace, surrounded by servants but with no one to love her. Although tremendously popular with people and the media alike, she cannot get close to anyone; and when she does, her love-affair is doomed. Watts does not resemble Diana facially, but she does a good job of conveying both the good and not-so- good sides of her character; her desire to help people, her feeling of alienation from all families, and her tendency to manipulate the media to suit her purposes. The film suggests, perhaps controversially, that Diana brought much of the press harassment on herself, especially when she asks a trusted photographer to take snaps of herself and Dodi Fayed (Cas Anvar), with the sole purpose of making Hasnat jealous, and thereby encouraging him to call her again after a long interval. She certainly knows how to portray herself on screen - as seen, for instance, in her celebrated interview with the BBC's Martin Bashir (Prasanna Puwanrajah), where she deliberately adopts a pose for the camera so as to obtain maximum sympathy from viewers. Nonetheless the film does suggest that she was more sinned against than sinning - a victim, perhaps, of the contemporary obsession with fame and celebrity.

I can understand why Diana might be a disappointment for most.

If one is after a detailed portrait of "The Loneliness of the Disaffected Princess" then this film will only partially fulfill.

If, however, one is after a simple, easy to watch love story about the affair so well hidden from the public eye in the 18 months prior to her sudden death, then fulfilled you shall be.

The disappointment for me came from the fact Diana's director, Oliver Hirschbiegel, created Downfall, the depiction of Hitler's final days. The film was an Oscar nominee, a deserved reward for its depth. Diana is his first foray into a love story. He talks of his research coming from the 2004 inquiry and The Kate Snell book of the affair. I suggest that the details coming from those sources was light and frothy.

The film is pleasant enough with a shallowness to match a children's wading pool, but as I say, it depends on what you are expecting. Oh, and Naomi Watts is lovely but not quite as beautiful as The Princess we remember!

I went to see the film 'Diana' this afternoon and can honestly say I thoroughly enjoyed it. The film took me on a very convincing journey into what it must have been like for Diana as she struggled with coming to terms with her own inner conflicts (eg the feeling that she was destined always to be an 'outsider' to whatever family she aspired to belong to) while striving to rebuild a life for herself after separating from Prince Charles and to find the love she so desperately yearned for. The story is by turns happy and sad. I found myself smiling for Diana when things were going well, heartbroken when they weren't. Naomi Watts does an absolutely amazing job of portraying Diana. Her's is undoubtedly the weightiest role in the film and she puts her heart and soul into it with a wonderfully nuanced performance. Naveen Andrews playing the part of Dr Hasnat Khan also deserves much credit. Other actors and actresses played lesser roles, but all were well cast and contributed significantly as members of Diana's remaining 'entourage' (some also in roles as 'confidants'). Cinematography, location photography, interiors, sets, music and directing were all excellent. I've never been much of a 'royalty follower', but having seen this film I feel I know a lot more about Diana, her day to day life, and the last love of her all too short life. Don't be put off by low ratings (or negative reviews) - this is a moving and well made film. Highly recommended. 8/10.