Movie review – Diana

Shane | 2 October 2013 | Reply

Starring Naomi Watts
Directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel
Reviewed by Shane Pinnegar
7/10

Diana paints a picture of Princess Diana as a lonely, sad and slightly manipulative woman living in the eye of a media hurricane as her private life becomes virtually non-existent thanks to paparazzi hounding and public fascination.

Focussing on the last two years of her life, director Hirschbiegel argues the case that Dodi Fayed was not the last true love of Lady Spencer’s life, but rather that he was used by Diana to make the man she did love – Pakistani heart surgeon Hasnat Khan – jealous.

Diana and Khan have as troubled a relationship as anyone in such an impossible situation would – their on-screen romance is tentative and charming, and as they make their mistakes, they also do good for each other.

In other words Hirschbieger shows Diana as resolutely human, flawed and troubled at times but desperately seeking love and approval and someone to rely on – a picture of the woman, rather than the idolicised “Queen Of Hearts” who many think could do no wrong.

“I’ve been performing since I was 7”, she says at one point, highlighting the fact that maybe even Diana herself didn’t know who she was at heart.

The movie succeeds best in breaking down the barriers between the perception of her as some kind of charitable Saint, to the reality of a scared and hurt little girl who never got the approval she needed from her family or relationships.

It’s a slow moving film though, yet strangely mesmerising in the same way that we stare at a slow motion car crash despite ourselves.

Watts does a pretty good impersonation of Diana, mostly nailing her facial mannerisms, but shooting wide of the mark in the Princess’s stance and walk – Watts is too confident, too sassy by half.

“My whole life is dramatic. It’s been full of the sound of people shutting doors on me.”

Hirschbieger cleverly avoids including any footage of the car crash that killed Diana, instead focussing on the emotional wreckage of her last few months, and although the sensationalised content of the film will polarise some viewers, it’s nowhere near as bad as many critics have already attested.