Diana.

It must be really tricky having the Queen of England as your mother in law especially if you have married her eldest son and even more so if you’re a free spirit? The adoration of the peoples Princess went deep into the British psyche and this shy looking young woman, who was supposed to be Queen herself one day, even wooed some die-hard republicans.  Lady Diana Spencer married the Prince of Wales on the 29 July 1981 becoming the Princess of Wales. The marriage produced two sons William and Harry who were respectively second and third to the British throne. The marriage ended some 15 years later with a divorce. One year later on the 31^st August 1997 the fairy tale Princess was fatally injured in a car crash in the Pont de I‘Alma road tunnel in Paris along with her companion Dodi Fayed and the driver Henri Paul. The movie Diana (2013) endeavours to shed some light upon the last two years of her life.

Adapted for the big screen by British playwright Stephan Jeffreys[1] from a novel by author and filmmaker Kate Snell entitled Diana: Her Last Love released in 2000. The film is really an attempt at telling a love story, one that would not be very interesting if it did not involve a real life controversial princess. It reveals Diana’s unexpected and empowering relationship with heart surgeon Dr Hasnat Khan the man, it is alleged, she was very much in love with and wanted to marry. But the problem was the media attention that she attracted everywhere she went, which for Khan presented a problem.

 

Naomi Watts and Naveen Andrews.

Dr Hasnet Khan and the Princess of Wales.

Directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel, who was responsible for the 2004 German film Downfall that depicted the final ten days of Adolf Hitler’s life in the Berlin bunker in1945, and starring British born Australian actress Naomi Watts as Diana with Naveen Andrews, probable best known for his role of Sayid Jarrah in the TV series Lost (2004 -10), as Hasnet Khan.

Originally I was not totally convinced by the story but since looking up some background on the love affair I found the basis of the story to be true although Khan has allegedly said that Kate Snell’s story is only based on speculation and gossip?  The only reason I went to see the movie was out of curiosity and I certainly did not expect to actually like it especially after all the negative publicly which I am convinced kept the public away from the screenings at my local cinema. I thought Naomi Watt’s performance actually captured the tragic and sad life of someone who seemed to have every material thing that money and fame can offer but she could not get what she really wanted most of all: love.

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[1] Wrote the screenplay for The Libertine (2004), which starred Johnny Depp.