Plot
In the wake of her split from Prince Charles, Diana’s (Naomi Watts) life is threatening to spiral out of control. However, after a chance meeting in a hospital, romance blossoms between herself and heart surgeon Dr. Hasnat Khan (Naveen Andrews). As her public life and presence explode into superstardom and her private life is wrenched into the public eye, Diana is faced with her toughest challenge yet: juggling her humanitarian dreams with her burgeoning love.
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| What are they both looking at? It's probably still more interesting than Diana. |
Review
They may not be financially lucrative, normally anyway, but biopics are the omnipresent champions of the awards' seasons, regularly cleaning out the Oscars and their lesser siblings year in year out. It’s understandable. Biopics often focus on intensely dramatic characters, who live and die tragic lives and there’s nothing that Academy voters love more than balls-to-the-wall, tear-your-eyes-out melodrama.
Diana should at least, if there’s any justice in the world, pick up a Razzie or two. Or seven.
Naomi Watts’ involvement in this debacle is nothing short of baffling. She was obviously hoping that some of The Iron Lady’s magic – which worked so well for Meryl Streep – would rub off on her. It really couldn’t have gone more wrong.
Diana makes it’s protagonist seem like the least likeable person in the world, never mind the People’s Princess. Twee, plain irritating and rampantly stupid, she’s utterly devoid of substance. A childish little girl absent of sense flapping on about love with all the nuance and intelligence of McFarty the Drunken Clown. It’s painful. Stropping in the park, stalking a bloke, angrily playing the piano (because that’s a thing you do when you live in Cloud Cuckooland) all of these highlights and more await you with a purchase to your local Diana screening. Perhaps most egregiously, after bickering with her douchey boyfriend she visits his apartment. Upon finding it on the dirty side of your standard sewer, what does she do: sort out her relationship? Shout at him for being a pig? Leave and return to her palace? No, she cleans it all!...What?? What is this film!?
Her apotheosis in the eyes of the film as well as it’s mindless inhabitants is as bemusing as it monstrously irritating; the nurse’s gurn of moronic adulation is particularly vomit inducing. Yes, Diana was beloved by many, it’s well known…so there’s no need for minute-by-minute reminders. Dianaseems to believe that 90s Britain was populated exclusively by idiot man-babies who can’t help but stop to gurgle and poke at the pretty thing that passes by. It’s cinematic suicide.
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| Sayid escaped from the island, moved to London and because a professional knob. |
Diana manages to be both repugnantly pretentious and overwhelmingly vapid at the same time. The film sports endless miniscule half-scenes, lasting 10 seconds maximum, all of which serve zero purpose but to pad out a woefully conspired narrative and, apparently, capitulate the sense of wearying, comically misplaced, elitism. Diegetically, technically, narratively, thematically: there’s no element of the production that isn’t smothered in viscous repellence. Why a lingering shot of Steiff teddy bears sat on a chair? Well, why not? She’s super rich and loved by everyone, aren’t you jealous of her?
The screenplay, well …In an amateurish film, where everything is designed to make its audience battle each other for freedom through the fire-exit, the screenplay still manages to stink like a fresh steamy turd courtesy of that puppy you thought was a good idea in a kitchen full of rotting vegetables. Every line is so laden with lofty proclamation you can almost see the pain in the actors’ faces as they deliver the latest flagellated turkey. Nothing feels real; everything is a catchphrase in the vein of the very worst pubescent poetry. It’s all uncomfortably artificial, controlled to the point of living death, utterly excruciating and ‘wish for spontaneous-combustion’ cringeworthy. Diana’s interpretation of love is a total thematic clusterfuck. And is, hilariously, almost a swearword: it’s used everywhere, meaning everything. For a fun game, watch Diana and mentally replace every instance of ‘love’ with ‘f**k.’
It wants to be some epic romance a la Romeo & Juliet but ends up farcical in its failure, painful with its ham-fisted idea of what love is, as if so long as they say it often enough everything will be fine.
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| Action packed materialism! It's all kicking off. |
There are no greener pastures on the technical side of things either. Director Oliver Hirschbiegel’s (for shame!) use of the camera is like the worst kind of snooty student film with the exception of the opening tracking shot. Though it’s refusal to show Diana’s face quickly grates and sets the obnoxious tone for things to come.
Diana’s globetrotting is at least mildly entertaining with its aesthetic and sensual differences. That isn’t to say these sequences are particularly well done – they aren’t, they're actually probably a little bit racist – just better than the rest of the mushy drivel on offer.
Ultimately, Diana is insulting to the memory of the woman it tries so poorly to praise. Not because the film is narratively offensive (though it may very well be for those better versed, and more closely involved, with the story) but because it’s so ball-breakingly bad.
Here’s a pitch for a sequel that would be more honourable to Diana’s memory: Diana never died. She survived the crash and secretly migrated to Russia where she trained as an assassin in the Ural mountains under the Guidance of Master Dickbrush (played by Gary Busey). The film follows her systematic murdering of the Western leaders that tried to kill her off. The final fight will be against Mecha-Queen. We’ll call it…Diana 2: Dawn of Death, Slogan: God Save the Queen…She’s Gonna Need it.
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| Note: not a horror film. Apparently. |
Verdict
It lacks the bravery, skill or belief to validate its own existence. Like a gilded mirror it can be beautiful to look at, shiny and inviting, but look closer and the grainy paint-job starts to show through, then the cracks in the frame and then you stand back and realise the mirror isn’t a mirror at all, but a pile of rancid shit.
1/5
The trailer, if you've got two minutes to waste:
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