Oliver Hirschbiegel's biopic about Princess Diana boasts lovely location filming—with plush interiors and first-class costuming—as well as a solid performance from Naomi Watts in the title role (she may not much resemble Diana but Watts does get the voice and mannerisms right). The script is fashioned from Kate Snell's 2000 book Diana: Her Last Love, depicting a two-year love affair between Diana and Hasnat Khan (Naveen Andrews), a Pakistani-British surgeon, which began in 1995 and ended shortly before her death in 1997. (In this telling, Diana's short involvement with Dodi Fayed was little more than a ruse to make Khan jealous and overcome his reluctance to commit to marriage.) Perhaps a trenchant story of a woman scorned by her husband who seeks romance elsewhere could be fashioned from this basic material, but here it becomes little more than a “poor little rich girl” tale. Diana meets Khan during a visit to the hospital where he works and soon they are a secret item—he sneaks into her residence for dinner, and she dons a black wig to accompany him to a jazz club. Unfortunately, the dialogue is so forced and banal that it reeks of a bad 1940s melodrama. And the sequences illustrating Diana's charitable crusades—particularly against land mines—are equally trivialized. Whatever her quirks, the princess surely deserved better than this. Not a necessary purchase. [Note: DVD/Blu-ray extras include interviews with star Naomi Watts (9 min.), director Oliver Hirschbiegel (9 min.), producer Robert Bernstein (7 min.), costar Naveen Andrews (6 min.), costume designer Julian Day (5 min.), production designer Kave Quinn (4 min.), and costars Douglas Hodge (4 min.) and Charles Edwards (3 min.), as well as trailers, and a fashion photo booklet. Bottom line: a solid extras package for a disappointing bio-pic.] (F. Swietek)
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