Diana Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		1.5
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		1.5
Overall		2.0

Diana Blu-ray Movie Review

Adding insult to (mortal) injury.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman February 7, 2014

While it didn’t quite rise to the level of “Where were you when President Kennedy was assassinated”, the tragic death of Princess Diana is certainly imprinted on the memories of virtually everyone who was old enough at the time to remember it, and many, myself included, can state exactly where they were when they first heard the news. My wife and I had been watching a DVD (remember those?) and had switched off the player, at which point our television returned to its broadcast channel, and there was the breaking news announcement that (at that point) Princess Diana had been gravely injured in a horrible car accident in Paris. We both literally gasped, almost as if we had personally known Diana, and my hunch is our reaction was shared by countless others across the globe. We stayed with the news broadcast until just a short time later the sad news that she had actually died as a result of her injuries was reported. That same sense of familiarity, whether warranted or not, may be what hampers Diana most. Those who idolized the princess will no doubt be annoyed if not downright infuriated by the film’s resolute refusal to partake in a hagiography, while those who are no fans of the princess, at least not in the rabid sense of the word, will probably complain that the film is surface deep at best, offering platitudes instead of a really immersive experience. Diana the film is in some ways as enigmatic as its subject, for it wants to be a “warts and all” look at Diana’s last couple of years on earth while at the same time glorifying her more altruistic aspects. It’s an uneasy mix that ultimately devolves into something you’d expect to see on the Lifetime Channel rather than a big budget affair featuring a star turn by an extremely respected actress.

There’s a brief textual prelude to Diana giving us the context of the film, and then in what is actually a rather silly sequence, we see her preparing to take the fateful car trip in Paris that would end her life. Over and over again, the soundtrack is filled with an ominous low frequency rumble, a frankly ludicrous foreshadowing as Diana (Naomi Watts) does such things as puts on makeup and then, in one really odd moment, stares back at the camera in the hotel hallway before getting on the elevator. (The film recreates the security camera footage that was aired repeatedly in the wake of the princess’ demise.) This sort of silly shorthand only serves to telegraph what an alarmingly desperate piece Diana is at several turns.

The film then looks back over Diana’s post-Charles life, revealing little supposed tidbits like the fact that she evidently rehearsed her famous line about three people being in her marriage, causing it to be a “bit crowded”, before delivering it to a massive worldwide audience via the BBC. What is the point of such revelations? To show that Diana was a machinating bitch, a master manipulator and someone not worthy of the public’s adulation. That might have been an interesting take on the story, but screenwriter Stephen Jeffreys and director Oliver Hirschbiegel want to have it both ways, ultimately offering a glowing depiction of Diana’s work on behalf of humanitarian causes. That might seem sensible—after all, few people are cut and dried, black and white affairs. But Diana never establishes a cogent point of view that makes the character more than the sum of these disparate parts.

Diana does a bit better on more intimate, personal elements, like Diana’s relationship with Dr. Hasnat Khan (Naveen Andrews, Lost ). Though the British were only too aware of this relationship, it never really reached the international consciousness the way that Diana’s relationship with Dodi Fayed (Cas Anvar) did, probably because Fayed of course perished with the princess in the horrific car accident. Khan’s character is actually in some ways a more interesting character than Diana herself in the film, a decent, caring individual who isn’t sure he can handle the baggage that comes with being Diana’s lover.

Watts does a decent enough impersonation in the film, but that, too, is a problem: it is an impersonation, a kind of Xerox copy of Princess Diana, replete with her soft spoken dialect and her tendency to tip her head to one side. There’s never the feeling that we’re witnessing a living, breathing human being. Instead, we get what amounts to a fashion show for much of the film, with Princess Diana traipsing through various environments in a variety of designer apparel. Andrews fares somewhat better even those the role of Khan, like Diana, is woefully underwritten. But something in Andrews’ doleful eyes is able to invest the character with a kind of vulnerable insecurity that allows some semblance of verisimilitude to creep into this otherwise fairly forgettable film.

Diana Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Diana is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Entertainment One with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.85:1. The film utilizes a number of worldwide locations which help lend an air of authenticity to the production, and which look great in high definition (though it's unclear as to whether at least some of them are stock footage). Otherwise, while the film looks sharp and is nicely detailed, it's curiously flat and devoid of much pop, aside from some great standalone sequences where, for example, what Diana is wearing offers an eyeful (see the first screenshot for an appealing example). Colors, while not especially lush, are accurate looking. Housed comfortably on a dual layer disc and sporting reasonably healthy bitrates, Diana suffers from no overt compression artifacts hampering this perfectly solid if oddly uninspiring presentation.

Diana Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Diana's lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track is similarly professional if also not a totally knock your socks (and/or ears) off proposition. Rather oddly, a lot of the source cues are classical, despite Diana's well publicized love for such British bands as Icehouse. The music luxuriously fills the surrounds, as does that odd LFE usage in the film's opening moments. Some of the location footage is nicely peppered with good ambient environmental effects placed in discrete channels. Dialogue is cleanly and clearly presented throughout the film.

Diana Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Cast and Crew Interviews include:

  Naomi Watts (1080p; 9:17)

  Naveen Andrews (1080p; 5:48)

  Douglas Hodge (1080p; 3:55)

  Charles Edwards (1080p; 2:46)

  Oliver Hirschbiegel (1080p; 8:46)

  Robert Bernstein (1080p; 6:37)

  Kave Quinn (1080p; 3:24)

  Julian Day (1080p; 4:57)

(There is no "Play All" capability on these.)

For those interested in such things, this also comes with a booklet devoted to Diana's fashion sensibility.

Diana Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Though Diana has been dead now for well over a decade, it simply have been too soon to expect a balanced, well formulated biographical film based on her life (or in this case, part of her life). This is a sad film for any number of reasons, not the least of which is that such an accomplished actress is left to flounder with such a directionless (or, perhaps, multi-directional) script and listless direction. Watts brings the requisite star power to this feature, but there's nothing supporting her, other than an appealing supporting performance by Andrews.