Review – Diana

It seems about the right moment to make a biopic about the Princess of Wales. Enough time has passed since her untimely death that a cinematic treatment of Diana, in the final years of her life, is a great deal more appropriate and respectful than it would have been only a few years ago. The conspiracy theories, the sensationalist speculation and the bitterness of royal politics have been laid to rest as much as they ever will be, and the topic seems ripe for a fly-on-the-wall treatment. But Diana is not quite the film you might expect; it splays its focus away from the royals, somewhat, and instead makes itself the subject of a two-year romance between the princess and heart surgeon Hasnat Khan. The result is a fine piece of cinema, but a disappointingly unambitious work of biography.

Diana falls at the first hurdle with the casting, because Naomi Watts is simply not suited to the role. She is a fine actor who made a stellar effort, and it is obvious from the movie posters that she can be made to look like Princess Di in stills, but she is not believable as Diana on the moving screen. Diana was a distinctly enigmatic character and to play her requires a character actor, preferably an unknown: Naomi Watts is neither. This is most evident in footage of the princess from the 1995 Martin Bashir interviews, which are featured prominently in the film. In real life Diana looks young and cowed, like a puppy afraid of being reprimanded; in Naomi’s portrayal, Diana is an angular, mature, self-assured figure, and not a bit like her doppelgänger. Far more effective is Naveen Andrews, playing Dr Khan, whose crass mannerisms and mournful eyes give the movie much of its charm and emotional heft.

More problematic is the excessive foreshadowing. We get plenty of extended scenes of a pensive Diana, and sharp, tension-building jump cuts, which all seems rather pointless considering the audience is well aware this story is going to end in tragedy. In labouring to show us that this was all coming Oliver Hirschbiegel ends up telling the same story as the tabloids, that of princess coming apart, rather than hinting at a Diana who just might have been more than her ends.

For all its flaws, Diana is not without its humour and, at pivotal moments, it delivers an emotional punch that leaves you reeling. But there is a failure of verisimilitude going on here which will, I think, ring false for those who remember where they were when they heard the news.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=axLcfpj7xeU&w=400]