When the Princess Diana film starring Naomi Watts was first announced, I had thought it would be one of the frontrunners for awards season. After all, Diana was and continues to be such an iconic figure in our history, and the fascination surrounding her love life and death continue even fifteen years after her death.
However, when the trailers first came out, the film looked less like an epic and more like a…. Lifetime movie. I might be wrong, and it might just be a badly cut trailer, but it didn’t give off the vibe I was hoping for when I initially heard of the movie. Of course, the film does focus on a very small part of her life, the time period where she fell in love with Hasnat Khan, which is shrouded in mystery and rumors.
Khan has come forward to deny that the film is accurate in any way, and in fact, he provided very harsh criticism in the many ways it appeared inaccurate. He explained, “I could tell immediately those were never our mannerisms at all, with [my] hands folded behind the back and all that. You could tell from that picture that it is all just presumed about how we would behave with each other, and they have got it completely wrong. There wasn’t any hierarchy in our relationship. She wasn’t a Princess and I wasn’t a doctor. We were friends, and normal people stand like friends with each other.”
He had me until he said ‘we were friends’. Come on Doctor, the whole world knows you were more than that.
He also added, “[The film] is based on gossip and Diana’s friends talking about a relationship that they didn’t know much about, and some of my relatives who didn’t know much about it either. It is all based on hypotheses and gossip.”
Well, I can agree with him to the extent that the actors might not be portraying everything accurately, but when you’re making a film BASED on a true story, that allows for some liberty. It won’t be an exact interpretation, and some aspects will be spiced up for cinematic appeal. That being said, the movie still doesn’t look very good, so I think Hasnat has a right to be worried. While Princess Diana may get more biopics and life stories to come, there’s a higher chance that this will be the only time he will be depicted on film.
