splendid performance from Helen Mirren, but too much TV-like stuff

Rating: 6/10 (17 August 2008)

This could have been one astonishing movie had the script writers and the director the courage to deal with some of the subject lines that keep being just hinted under too much expected TV biopic like stuff. I will leave to other to comment whether the movie is pro or anti-monarchy, maybe it's just neutral in the good BBC tradition. The story of the week between Diana's death is a good opportunity for one film or more about the birth of the myth of Saint Diana, about the faith of the British dynasty and its adaptability and amazing survival into modern times, or about a dysfunctional family who is at helm or close to it in the monarchic democracy of today, but is as remote from its own people as like being on a different planet. It is only the last line of action that gets some decent treatment, yet here also the TV instincts of the director seem to prevail and the result looks a few inches too close to TV comedy, rather than to serious political drama. It is really a pity, we are left just with the superb act of Helen Mirren - here being for once an Oscar prize I believe was deserved - and all the other interesting movies that could have been are left for the future to come into existence.