Whether Diana was an angelic humanitarian, or an aristocratic celebutante, her memory deserves better than scattershot biopic, Diana. Focusing on the last two years of the Princess of Wales’ life, director Oliver Hirshbiegel looks at a Diana (Naomi Watts, caricaturing) preparing to divorce Prince Charles and emerge as a global figure in land mine eradication. Like the tabloids which haunt her, the film makes reduces those efforts as background noise to Diana’s love life. Here she falls in love with a London heart surgeon (Naveen Andrews). The two eat Burger King and watch telly and snog. Trapped in her palace, the mother of two and almost queen awaits her new bf’s phone calls like a lovesick schoolgirl. Much more interesting is the Princess’ later heartbroken attempts at clubbing, drug use and casual yachting. Unfocused and overreaching, Diana can’t reconcile its small story of forbidden love with the entrenched myth of its deceased heroine, resulting in this clogged-up mess.
This article appears in Nov 14-20, 2013.