Really Surprised!

Masterful Movie

Let's be realistic.

It was OK. I don't see why everyone loves it so much. It wasn't very smart or deep or well-directed.

Diana is a love story that focuses on the last two years of Princess Diana's life and her relationship with Hasnat Khan. This film received a thrashing from film goers and critics alike and yet remains a popular rental despite these reviews. As of this writing, the film cost approximately $15 million to make and made $21.7 million. So not as much of a clunker at the box office as we are led to believe by the public vitriol concerning this film. Considering that the screenings were limited, it made it's money back -- and a bit more.Is it that we miss Diana so much that we would watch anything Diana? Or is it that it does not live up to our own personal "icons" of Diana that displeases us so? It is often lambasted for the "negative space" around it - or what it isn't. We are furious that the filmmakers did not tell the story we wanted them to tell. Lost in this is the fact that it is based on a book by Kate Snell, "Diana: Her Last Love." The film's focus was narrow -- and very focused on the emotional part of the story.To me I saw a woman who is experiencing her first real love with a worthy partner and someone who never took advantage of her as all her other relationships did. It treats its subject respectfully so it hints at Diana's obsessiveness, but does not dawdle there. It highlights her willfulness but doesn't make a best friend of it. The children are shown only at a distance and the romantic scenes are modest. This is a film about an intimate, one on one, connection she had with Hasnat Khan and the tension that existed between them who, recognizing a soul mate in each other, are trying to figure out how to make it "work" with the limitations of different cultures, fame, professional dedication, and each other's strong personalities. And in that sense it does succeed. One can only guess at how frustrating this dilemma - of meeting a soul mate, with these kinds of challenges, must have been for both of them. Yet the bond was strong - both of their lives were deeply rooted in healing and helping others - and it was Diana's longest lasting relationship of all her paramours.The movie does a good job of highlighting their story and some of the private moments they shared. Naomi Watts does a great job playing the Princess as does Naveen Andrews who plays Hasnat Khan. The writing for the most part is very good. This is a vignette, not a novel, and it leaves us rooting for and wondering about what could their future have been had Princess Diana lived.

When I heard about this movie I thought it was going to be a more or less biographical film, like the ones that were already made for other personalities (and it seems that, after "The Queen" and "Iron Lady", the trend is to take British personalities of most recent decades). But this movie was far from it. In fact, I don't know to what extent this film is biographical because its not able to decently tell the life of Diana Spencer, who went down in history as Princess of Wales by marrying the heir to the British crown. If we don't have well present in memory all her life we will leave the room without completely understanding the film, because it explains very little and focuses more on the time after the separation of the royal couple. And let's face it, many of us no longer remember her life. More than ten years have passed since her death and almost no one has an elephant's memory.Then we have Naomi Watts in the lead role. She is a good actress and was certainly a solid bet of the director, Oliver Hirschbiegel. The physical resemblance between her and the late princess is evident and was well used, but it lacks to this Diana the good script and solid dialogues that would give to the film a quality that, in this way, does not have. Anyway, since Diana is such a beloved personality even today, it took some courage to make the film, and so I can consider it was a merit effort, even if it failed at what was essential.

I don't know why people think Naomi Watts wasn't the best actress in this because she really was! OK in some scenes, she didn't exactly look like Princess Diana but in most scene's she has done! She looked absolutely beautiful by the way!I loved how she had put a 'shy girl' attitude on her character, I have always thought Diana had that in her! Her voice was just so lovely and soft. Any little princess would've loved to have her as a mum! Naveen Andrews was the best actor to play an Indian doctor. He appears to be the person who never tries to slip his own accent. He really made a good job being in character. Some actors would let their own accents take over control when being in character.Bravo to all actors involved :)

Despite the film receiving negative reviews in the media, I actually thought it was quite good. The message I got from the film that those who were closest to Diana, had let her down. I felt very sad for her. She wasn't perfect but she was very good at using her strength of building relationships with people, to her advantage. I think Naomi Watts portrayed her very respectfully and I was glad that the film didn't have scenes of Diana overeating or throwing herself down the stairs.Overall, the film was not as bad as what I had anticipated. It was a story about a real person.