It’s impossible to say there’s a dearth of media related to Diana, Princess of Wales, born Diana Frances Spencer. There are interview-based documentaries, middle-of-the-road films starring Kristen Stewart, and enough books to comprise several years’ worth of summer reading.
Even nearly twenty-five years after her death, Diana, known affectionately in some circles as Princess Di, has the ability to capture the public imagination. In just a few months, Netflix’s The Crown will likely have its upcoming season revolve around the dissolution of Diana and Prince Charles’ marriage, her subsequent relationship with Dodi Fayed, and her death at 36 in Paris.
New HBO documentary The Princess seems to argue that Diana will forever be a part of the modern consciousness because her life, and then her death, were the subjects of unprecedented media inquiry. It’s a story we likely already know inside and out (the bad marriage, the divorce, the fatal paparazzi car chase), but it’s one many will clamor to watch nonetheless.
While other biographical documentaries might feel the need to begin with wholesome childhood photos and talking heads who knew the subject at an early age, The Princess begins with Diana’s engagement to Charles, aka, the moment she became apparent fair game for ceaseless media surveillance. With this, The Princess seems to be saying this is the moment Diana’s life as the “People’s Princess” began and the seeds of what would eventually cause her death were planted.
Told entirely through contemporaneous footage, The Princess allows its images and editing to tell the story in place of paid commentators. We see a nineteen-year-old Diana Spencer and thirty-two-year-old Prince Charles discuss their engagement. The often aloof Charles mentions that, upon their first meeting he found her “a very jolly, amusing, and attractive sixteen-year-old.” It will become apparent over the film’s runtime that Charles says things like this straight-faced because he is seemingly unaware of how they might sound to the general public.
After this, the film takes us through Diana and Charles’ fraught marriage. There are children born, infidelities on both sides, and an emotional chasm between the two. Members of the media wonder whether the marriage will last amid Diana’s tell-all books and Charles’ flirtatious conversations with his mistress. Of course, it doesn’t, and media scrutiny then becomes concerned with what role Diana will play as the ex-wife of a future king. The film ends with Diana’s death and funeral, with particular concern paid to the way the media treats a topic for which it was popularly blamed.
For those looking for insight from those who knew Diana best, The Princess is not the film for you. Rather than take this tack, it appears more concerned with investigating the effect of living under an intrusive media surveillance state. It becomes maddening watching cameras capture every second of Diana’s life. The idea that the deterioration of one’s relationship would be the topic of several newscasts and open to the commentary of the world’s opinion columnists is horrifying.
It’s probable that this relationship was doomed to fail. Even had there been no divorce, do we truly believe this marriage of convenience would have been a happy one? In another time, if Diana had had a different mindset concerning her happiness and what constitutes a fulfilling role for a future queen, maybe. But, as one of the film’s commentator’s states, “When you put a modern person in an ancient institution, they will be destroyed…But once that institution starts destroying people, it’s time to recognize there’s something fundamentally wrong with [it].” This brings up the film’s other focus: the relevancy of a monarchy in modern England.
The film spends several of its early minutes showcasing the juxtaposition between a recession-hit early-1980s England and the lavishness involved in preparing for a royal wedding. Some consider the nuptials a fairy-tale event, a welcome distraction from the austerity of economic realism. Others see it as proof of the royal family’s detachment from their subjects. How can they spend all this, make such a show, some ask, when the country could desperately use these same funds?
In the public eye, Charles’ relationship with Diana often becomes a litmus test for how well he might govern. At one point, a viewership poll after an interview in which a now-separated Charles admits to an affair with Parker Bowles finds that 61% consider him fit to be king, while 54% consider him right to admit to his unfaithfulness. English monarchists and republicans battle it out over the ground of the Prince and Princess of Wales’ marriage; the latter faction asks, “Are we really meant to be governed by these two horny loons?”
Overall, The Princess is an interesting look at a woman who has had the misfortune of being the focus of the media’s gaze for half of her life and a quarter century after her death. For critics who deride her for not knowing or caring that her life would specifically be subject to intense scrutiny and speculation, Diana candidly states, “At the age of 19, you always think you’re prepared for everything.” The BBC interview in which she divulges this is watched by millions at home and in pubs like a world-class sporting event.
This interest in the ethics of paparazzi (and the publications that buy their photos in addition to the readers that support their magazines) is perhaps the main reason to watch. It’s likely anyone throwing this documentary on has already watched The Crown, Spencer, or something similar. They likely already know the beats of the Diana-Charles story, and there’s nothing here that wasn’t already well-documented and made available to the public.
What sets The Princess apart, however, is the unnerving way in which it shows us the level of documentation her life was under. Cameramen argue over whether or not Diana can see their telescopic lenses from a beach half a mile away. Journalists press a royal spokesperson over the minutest details of Diana’s wedding attire. An interviewer asks Diana if she’s been able to add any small personal touches to her own wedding day. Her answer is circumlocutory. “I think, by inviting one’s friends and all people who’ve helped us.”
The Princess is worth a watch, if only to watch how much we watch. It will give you no new insight into a well-documented woman, but it may give you pause before patronizing the type of media outlets that Diana at times weaponized in battles with her ex over public perception and other times avoided at all costs.
The Princess premieres Saturday, August 13, 2022, at 8 p.m. ET/PT on HBO and HBO Max.
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