Going into this movie, I expected a touching look into the life of Princess Diana, of the things that shaped her from her early school years, through her courtship and marriage to Prince Charles, their divorce and its aftermath, all the way up to that fateful night in Paris on August 31st 1997.
Instead, I got a shallow and unengaging love story set during the last two years of Princess Diana's life.
The movie centers around the budding relationship between the Princess of Wales, as portrayed by Naomi Watts, and Pakistani heart surgeon Dr. Hasnat Khan, played by Naveen Andrews.
Disappointingly, the love story feels perfunctory and unbelievable, and I suspect one of the many reasons for this is the obvious lack of chemistry between Watts and Andrews characters. Other big contributing factors are the platitude-laden conversations, clichéd choice of music, choppy editing and just downright awful directing. If I were director Oliver Hirschbiegel, I would feel pretty embarrassed right now.
As for the acting, I feel that Naomi Watts makes a good effort but has been badly miscast, and sadly falls short of capturing the air of Princess Diana who carried with her an odd mix of dignified, trembling vulnerability and scorned, calculated vengeance. Instead, in the movie, she comes off as a nutty stalker, chasing down a man who does not seem to harbour any particular interest in her - sexual, romantic or otherwise. A better casting choice would, in my opinion, have been Laura Dern (assuming she could have pulled off the accent) or perhaps someone entirely unknown.
As for Naveen Andrews, whether the robotic stone-faced brick wall persona is in fact that of real-life Dr Khan can only be speculated. I do not, however, feel that Andrews invested much emotional effort into the role, but his portrayal might very well be attributed to a poor script or bad directing.
All in all, huge disappointment. Would not recommend this to anyone, except maybe to film students wanting to know what all-around filmmaking failure looks like.
Instead, I got a shallow and unengaging love story set during the last two years of Princess Diana's life.
The movie centers around the budding relationship between the Princess of Wales, as portrayed by Naomi Watts, and Pakistani heart surgeon Dr. Hasnat Khan, played by Naveen Andrews.
Disappointingly, the love story feels perfunctory and unbelievable, and I suspect one of the many reasons for this is the obvious lack of chemistry between Watts and Andrews characters. Other big contributing factors are the platitude-laden conversations, clichéd choice of music, choppy editing and just downright awful directing. If I were director Oliver Hirschbiegel, I would feel pretty embarrassed right now.
As for the acting, I feel that Naomi Watts makes a good effort but has been badly miscast, and sadly falls short of capturing the air of Princess Diana who carried with her an odd mix of dignified, trembling vulnerability and scorned, calculated vengeance. Instead, in the movie, she comes off as a nutty stalker, chasing down a man who does not seem to harbour any particular interest in her - sexual, romantic or otherwise. A better casting choice would, in my opinion, have been Laura Dern (assuming she could have pulled off the accent) or perhaps someone entirely unknown.
As for Naveen Andrews, whether the robotic stone-faced brick wall persona is in fact that of real-life Dr Khan can only be speculated. I do not, however, feel that Andrews invested much emotional effort into the role, but his portrayal might very well be attributed to a poor script or bad directing.
All in all, huge disappointment. Would not recommend this to anyone, except maybe to film students wanting to know what all-around filmmaking failure looks like.