Mark Kermode reviews Diana

so last week was the notorious Naomi Watts interview so that went out and that's available on the podcast should you still wish to hear it that of course was pertaining to Diana which is I guess the most talked about movie hosted just in case anybody doesn't know so it's a it's basically a sort of speculative piece about Diana's relationship in inverted commas with has that calm I think you need to put that in over to commerce no but okay her relationship with has that con which involves a certain degree of speculation because a lot of the movie involves conversations to which no one was party other than the two main players anyway here's a clip before I discuss the film this well this is fairly self-explanatory so Hart's contact she'd be broken a heart can receive a shock so violent it never recovers yes but can they actually break my colleagues might disagree but I believe for incidents that Maria Callas died of a broken heart you don't like my food oh no it's lovely you're obviously a very accomplished girl what kind of food do you really like you couldn't make me a hamburger could you sure you can actually make hamburgers oh dear I could send out for one so uh you almost didn't want to say anything I know it no me Watson Naveen Andrews now look here's the here's the problem if you judge by that clip okay that will give you the sense that what this was was rollicking Lee terrible from beginning to end in a kind of one-star review mighty meaty kickin you know let's just go and see how bad it can possibly be and indeed there have been several reviews that have gone down that line that have just come and I think that goes some way toward explaining why there was an anxiety in the air over the conversation last week because I think that there was an expectation that the movie would be met with hostility the worst thing about it is is it's nothing like that interesting eighties just for the Maine with a couple of exceptions that conversation being the absolute highlight unbelievably boring ly well-behaved and dull it's the kind of movie that has you longing for the absolute idiocy of that television movie William and Kate which involved him you know yumping into into into the most when she's in a punt and you know what all that yeah of course I saw it because it was brilliant it was laugh-out-loud funny it also lacks any of the kind of chubby insights of the Karen Carpenter story which appears to incidentally be on hard rotational satellite TV right now I know this because Jon Ronson was alerted to it on Twitter we all got to go back and watch that again what it is is just it's so painfully aware of treading carefully you know in that interview you used the phrase it's interesting we're still treading on eggshells you meant it about the discussion about Diana but the film feels like it is treading on eggshells and then some it's not good enough to simply say it's a one-star film because there's something about a one-star film is something about five star film it's worse it's a twosome you remember that that famous for what you think a movie it's it's it's better than good it's mediocre this is like so it's just below par its below part in a really sort of plodding hallmark television kind of way Naomi Watts has got all the head tilts and the hair pieces and the hairdos and the you know the nose appliances and all that stuff but she still looks like Naomi Watts being her and that in a way is a central problem because if you think about film like Nixon in which she's okay what Antony Hopkins didn't look anything like Nixon but he had the mannerisms right that's absolutely true and you know when you watch the Queen you don't think you know what that's really not what the Queen looks like because it doesn't what you think is that's a really really terrific performance from a brilliant actress but more importantly you believe in the in the stuff right I was when I was watching the first run I think why did they make this and the only reason I can think is that they that they think that somehow it would function as a prequel to the Queen you know that somehow this is the events leading up to the Queen and the Queen is somehow they'll make it kind of an awards courting to peace there is no other explanation Madonna Hirschberg LeMay downfall is a proper director Naomi Watts is a intelligent and proper actress who I think you know gives it her very best shot but at no point do you believe you're watching anything other than a made-for-tv you know film of the week and this sort of saccharine let's just tread very gently around everything everything she says sounds like it's taken directly from the pages of Hello magazine I mean Steven Jeffries the screenwriter is no Peter Morgan with very few people are Peter Morgan but you know I had reservations about the cinematic qualities of the Queen which of course did start life as a TV movie and then made it managed to make it into cinemas because people responded so well to it and you know the fact of the matter is this is nothing but a great big schmaltzy meringue of a TV movie and it would be one thing to be able to be really cross and really outraged and really offended I mean you actually said that during a part of it you were embarrassed yeah for about the first half an hour 40 minutes it was it was embarrassed and then well it's not I mean I agree I agree is it to stomach I don't think it's not without merit I think some of the bits where I think it's largely without merit well I think some of the secrets is where her life is descended into madness with the paparazzi I think I'm quite well done however it is that I kept on thinking of you saying you know the Queen wasn't cinematic well this feels like a Hallmark Channel I've exactly and and I think they made I mean just on on the way she looked she said and she said in the interview last week I died I don't look anything like Diana but there's right at the very beginning of the movie it's shot it's the bit leading up to she's in she's in Paris yes the ocean from behind yeah and so they shoot it from behind so you can't actually see her face she goes into the bathroom she does have some bathroom he thinks that she comes out and I think I were very deliberately doesn't reveal her yes I think this is gonna be good this is going to be interesting they're deliberately building up building up the suspense what does she look like yeah we still don't see then it cuts to her meeting some crowds outside and she's still being shot from behind and then she turns here's the big reveal and everybody goes what she looks though he wasn't it doesn't and it does matter because more than Michael Sheen or more than Anthony Hopkins because she's this iconic image of the last hundred years but it also what it matters because it shows you that the rest of the drama isn't working and that's the point a performance is only as good as the film that it's in and in the case of you know Michael Sheen doesn't look like Tony Blair but you believe he's Tony Blair partly because it's a brilliant performance but partly because the drama is working around him and I know I was down on the Queen but frankly you put the Queen next listen is Citizen Kane however I don't want people to be misled by thinking it's one of those it's so terrible let's go see what all the fuss is about it's not it's worse than that it's just terribly boring and well behaved it well behaved in that kind of and the phrase that you use and this is why it was so strange treading on eggshells it felt like a film that was tiptoeing around its subject it felt like a film that was extemporizing in all the wrong places and yet oddly sort of you know and that that thing about do you have permission to film outside those gates it was weird because the whole film seemed to be saying we don't want to bother anybody we don't want to say you could you can have it on in the background as you say you know channel 5 2:30 on a Sunday afternoon and nobody would notice although occasionally you'd look up and go oh Naomi Watts has got a new wig on it's very Wiggy it is and there's a very wig so she doesn't look like Danna and then there's a secret where she's disguising herself to go out with hazmat car and she puts on a wig and you go where you really don't look like her now you just really look like Naomi was with two wigs on yeah and I don't I don't I don't think I know that some people were expecting instead of you know hideous rant you're not going to get one it's really not worth it

Channel: kermodeandmayo

Views: 164,267

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Id: 9Gb5Y4oK1kg

Length: 8min 10sec (490 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 20 2013