'Diana' Movie Review - Naomi Watts and Naveen Andrews  | Movie Reviews Site

Naomi Watts and Naveen Andrews

"Diana" Movie Review: 2 1/2 Stars

by Roger Moore

There's a myopia to "Diana," the new film about the divorce and last great romance of Princess Diana's life, that fits its subject like one of Diana's signature, custom-tailored gowns.

Isolated, focused on her image, her few contacts with the outside world and her work, when this lonely and lovelorn woman (Naomi Watts) zeros in on something or someone, it seems obsessive, smothering and all-consuming.

And dismiss it as worthy of a Lifetime Original Movie if you want, but this film from the director of the Fuhrer bunker drama "Downfall" gives us insights into this poor little royal plaything that Americans, at least, will find eye-opening.

Based on "Diana, Her Last Love" by Kate Snell, Oliver Hirschbiegel's film depicts a manipulator practicing, in front of a mirror, her most withering lines about her failed marriage to Prince Charles.

"There were three of us in this marriage," she famously told her TV interrogator. "So it was a bit crowded."

She milks her victimhood, frets over how seldom she gets to see her princely sons and manages to seem both vulnerable and cunning at the same time.

A trusted aide (played by Charles Edwards) feels she's maneuvering behind his back and offers to resign, and her cool reaction stuns him.

"Well, Patrick, you've been a rock."

"What will you do?"

"Get a new rock."

Cast out from the royal family and not close to her own, she only takes counsel from a trusted confidante (Juliet Stevenson) and Oonagh Toffolo, her acupuncturist/confessor (Geraldine James).

But she has a gift for empathy, and it's much more than just her image. Dashing into a hospital to visit Oonagh's ailing husband, she ignores the nurses who swoon in her presence and the doctors who ogle her. But that empathy leads her to cool, handsome and charming heart surgeon Dr. Hasnat Khan (Naveen Andrews).

Their love affair, the tricks each used to see the other, the strains of celebrity and of being "the most famous woman in the world" in love with a Pakistani Muslim suck up the bulk of "Diana." The film shows us a nocturnal creature in hot pursuit of the one man underwhelmed by her celebrity until he is overwhelmed by the press, the culture clash and the demands of a woman who can have what she wants.

Watts masters Diana's look -- the way she carried her head and used those wide, coyly expressive eyes -- but is only passable at impersonating the voice.

It is too superficial and flattering to pass muster with the British press, which had both an ownership stake and a hate-love affair with her. But "Diana" vividly captures the shrinking world in which she lived, of public appearances, midnight escapes in her butler's car, donning a long black wig to make this deal-with-the-devil life she bought into work, even as she desperately wanted to remain "Princess of Our Hearts."

About the Movie - "Diana"

During the last two years of her life, Princess Diana embarks on a final rite of passage: a secret love affair with Pakistani heart surgeon Hasnat Khan

MPAA rating: PG-13 (for brief strong language, some sensuality and smoking)

Running time: 1:51

"Diana" Movie Review - Oliver Hirschbiegel's film about Princess Diana