Diana film premieres to terrible reviews

Pointless and cheerless.  Not exactly the words the makers of the new film about Diana, Princess of Wales were hoping for in the first reviews of the movie.  The world premiere of Diana took place in London on Thursday night with the star of the movie, Naomi Watts, walking the red carpet. She looked pretty cool on a hot night in Leicester Square in a white floor length dress but the critics were left flustered by the film which gets generally bad reviews in the British press this morning.

 

Naomi Watts in London on September 5th 2013 for the world premiere of Diana in which she plays the late princess

 

The kindest comes from The Independent where the opening sequence is praised for its cinematography at the very start of the film and the sense of sadness and drama to come.  But the script is then savaged and concerns raised about the amount of baggage weighting down the story.  For The Independent, it's impossible to view the film without the real Diana in mind and that stops it ever taking off as a story.  And it's not the only paper to mention the fact that Naomi Watts, now 44, looks nothing like Diana who was 36 at the time of her death.

 

 

Naomi Watts as Diana - the hair's the same but does the face match well enough to convince audiences?

 

But most reviewers do give the Oscar nominated actress decent and sometimes good reviews for her interpretation of the princess who changed royalty forever.  Naomi Watts herself said she focused on getting Diana's mannerisms, body language and way of speaking right and it shows with most critics praising the way she brings to life the familiar gait and charisma of a woman who was in the public eye for nearly every moment of her sixteen years as royal bride, wife and mother. 

Diana's mannerisms and body language were top priority for Naomi Watts

 

But then the savaging stars.  Peter Bradshaw in The Guardian calls the film well meaning before giving it a one star review that describes the dialogue as cardboard and the overall feel of the film as sugary and overemotional.  He, too, refers to the baggage that comes with bringing the story of Diana to the screen commenting that the whole tale feels airbrushed to make its heroine appear perfect and minus the flaws that everyone has and which the princess, with every moment on her life followed, displayed quite openly.

 

Too much romance and not enough real love - the critics think the relationship between Diana and Hasnat Khan has been turned into a bad hearts and flowers novel

 We're up to two stars in the Daily Telegraph where David Gritten calls it leaden, pedestrian and peppered with lurid sensationalism.  He's less impressed by director Oliver Hirschbiegel's decision to start and end the film with an interpretation of that night at the Ritz hotel that led to tragedy at the Pont d'Alma in the early hours of August 31st 1997 feeling that it adds a tabloid twist to an attempt to tell a relatively untouched part of Diana's later life.  But he, like all the critics, feels the real problem is the script.

Watts in the scenes showing the lead up to the car crash that killed Diana, Princess of Wales in 1997

 

The Australian online calls it 'squirmingly embarassing' while back in the UK, The Telegraph wonders what on earth the whole point of the film was as the dialogue takes viewers nowhere.  And most critics agree that while the film is centred on the relationship Diana had with Hasnat Khan, he seems utterly irrelevant to the whole thing and the actor who plays him, Naveen Andrews, has been handed one of the worst written roles committed to celluloid in years. 

No prizes for the script in the film Diana which reviewers say left Naveen Andrews (seen here as Hasnat Khan) with little hope of turning in a good performance

 

TMirror really goes for the film calling it a cheap and cheerless effort that's turned the princess into a 'sad-sack singleton'.  It's another one star review for a film that has been roundly derided all round.  Naomi Watts herself said she feared she might have to leave the country after taking on the role of the princess.  She might want to get away just to escape the critics.