Diana (2013)

Genres

Biography, Drama, Romance

Director

Oliver Hirschbiegel

Countries

UK, France, Sweden, Belgium

Cast

Naomi Watts, Naveen Andrews, Cas Anvar, Laurence Belcher, Harry Holland, Douglas Hodge, Geraldine James, Charles Edwards, Mary Stockley, Juliet Stevenson

Storyline

It follows Princess Diana (Naomi Watts) during the last two years of her life as she shares a secret love story with Pakistani surgeon Hasnat Khan (Naveen Andrews). 

Opinion

Once upon a time, there was a stupid teenager, me, who thought to have the actor looking like the real-life character was the key to a great biopic. Well, if I only could go back to those innocent days, I'd say Diana is the best biopic I've seen recently. "Unfortunately", I'm not that superficial anymore, and Naomi Watts resembling Princess Diana isn't enough to save this pathetic excuse of a film. 

I remember having quite high expectations when it came out, but it sure wasn't able to live up to them, and that's mainly because of the sloppy script. Since I didn't know this part of her life - I always thought Dodi Fayed was her lover, but apparently she only used him to make Hasnat Khan jealous, a very royal thing to do, by the way -, the storyline sounded very interesting to me. Too bad for me this turned out to be nothing but a soapy love story that never quite takes off and that it's utterly tedious.

The title character didn't get a better treatment. The character completely lacks in depth. This Diana is a shallow, naive and most of the time very stupid woman that has no sensibility whatsoever. Not to mention that she acts like a stalker. And there's not much Naomi Watts can do to save her. With such poor material, all she can do is looking like her. She is charming as usual but that doesn't help either.

The only slightly interesting thing about this film is the love interest, Hasnat Khan. The only thing that could have been interesting about this film since the writers once again didn't really bother writing a decent character. But they did give him some conflict. He is indeed divided between his faith and family and the woman he loves, and Naveen Andrews tries his best to make something out of that. But that's not enough either to redeem this film.