The role of Princess Diana is taken by Kristen Stewart, and while the basics of a Christmas visit to Sandringham are factual (for example the traditional 'weighing ceremony' undertaken by all who visit the estate including the Queen), it should be realised that the events portrayed are entirely fictional and disclosed as such by a sentence at the start telling us that this is "a fable based on a true tragedy."
The film starts with a Princess Diana, lost in her car without security or company of any kind and already showing signs of the unravelling that is to become worse as the film progresses. Her arrival at Sandringham is less than dignified and the staff are not backwards in showing their disapproval. In fact more time is spent in the movie describing the relationship between Diana and the paid help than with her family; this will be disappointing to people who hope to see the dynamic of the relationship with Charles and his mother portrayed, but there is interest enough in itself in this and her relationship with her two sons is sensitively dealt with.
For me however, the ethereal quality with which the film is shot - almost dreamlike and surreal at times - is not what I had been expecting, and this is underscored by a soundtrack which is haunting and chilling, and at times even difficult to listen to. It is the music of madness and what you are seeing on the screen would seem at times to confirm this.
To write a review of a film is sometimes a difficult thing to do without spoiling the film; in this case there is no problem because there really is no story or plot to spoil as such. It's more a portrait of a descent - but a descent into what? It's funny, because so much is actually known about Diana and Charles and the difficult marriage they shared, that it's hard to understand exactly why the writers chose to make up a fictional 'story', bookended into three days of which we can really know nothing of the detail. At times the events they have made up seemed to me to be beyond the pale; would Diana really have gone - or indeed been allowed to go, on nocturnal ramblings on her own to derelict building? I think not. And the denouement of the film in which she faces of the combined guns of a shooting party - well sorry - I just don't buy it.
Then we must come to Stewart's performance as Diana which at the end of the day, is the central theme of the film (ie simply watching her do the things she is doing, being as it were, the person she is). Now this has received plaudits from critics across the board - Mark Kermode was particularly taken with it, but to me, like Gary Oldman's Churchill before it, the performance was simply a caricature of the real person. Stewart was a master of all of the head dipping, the looking out from under the hair, the rapid and staccato speech - but that was all it was. Again, like Churchill, Diana had so many defining traits that to portray her in this manner was (in my mind) the simply lazy way to go about it. You finish up impersonating the person rather than truly getting under their skin. Really, there must have been times, behind closed doors when Diana raised her head or didn't rap out speech like machine gun bullets.
So all in all for me the film was a bit of a let-down. I guess I'd hoped for a bit of fly on the wall drama focused on her and Charles' relationship rather than a Dali hued portrait of a difficult few days of (fictional) life, but there you have it. On the plus side, my wife liked it, so don't listen to me - get out and see it for yourself, and you never know, perhaps forewarned is forearmed.
