The Princess

CinemaSerf6/10

Jul 8, 2022

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This is a very well researched chronology of the life of a woman who took the world's media by the scruff of the neck in a way that had never happened before, nor is likely to again. Using actuality from her engagement to the Prince of Wales through to her eventual death, Ed Perkins delivers a largely recycled and one-sided depiction of this flawed human being that pays scant regard to her numerous critics and is somewhat annoyingly peppered with the out of vision views of anonymous, uncredited, talking heads - some of whom are more recognisable (e.g. Dr. David Starkey) and others less so as it progresses. There is no doubt it is a well crafted film and is a testament to archivists the world over who have carefully preserved such historical footage for us to remember now, 25 years after her fatal car crash. I have to say that I found most of the adulatory vox pops cringe-makingly embarrassing - most of the contributors here knew no more about the intimacies of the royal marriage than anyone in the cinema watching. The lack of any semblance of a neutral narrative thread, I felt, leads to an interesting retrospective that tells us little fact, but fuels the divisive epitaph of a woman, and a relationship, about which it impossible to generalise. Given the scenes seen recently in London as Queen Elizabeth II celebrated her platinum jubilee, it also seems to completely misunderstand the dynamic between the monarchy and the citizens of Britain with assertions that somehow the idolisation of this Princess would remain far longer in the minds of the populace than they certainly do amongst the bottom-feeding media. Nothing at all new to see here.