Film Preview: Diana (2013)

Poster

Trailer Link

Release Date:

November 1, 2013

Synopsis:

From IMDb: “The last two years of Princess Diana’s life: her campaign against land mines and her relationship with surgeon Dr Hasnat Khan.”

Poster: C / B

Review: The first design has no spark of creativity, it is what it is and that’s sufficient for the film’s purpose. The second design is a bit more interesting, putting our protagonist against a vast ocean of solitude. It’s a much more stark image, but less obvious and therefore harder to sell.

Trailer: B / B

Review: You don’t get to hear Naomi Watts as Diana, so it’s hard to know how accurate her portrayal could be, but she has a good deal of the look down in the trailer. Never settling on dialogue and discussing her importance to the world is a solid effort to sell the film to the masses, but those of us disappointed by films like My Week with Marilyn and The Iron Lady will recognize the tell-tale signs of a meandering plot and a disinteresting, superficial examination of the latter years of Diana’s life and not her more glorious days as Princess.

Whereas the first trailer deftly avoids showcasing whether Naomi Watts sounds like the Diana or not, you have a second trailer that gets her speaking far more frequently and it’s a bit more disconcerting. Mix that with an obvious thriller mentality and you have a film that doesn’t look nearly as interesting as a biopic of her early life and marriage would have been.

Oscar Prospects:

There will be a push for Naomi Watts to get an Oscar nomination and she will probably get it. However, the film looks as lackluster as My Week with Marilyn did.