Diana
Entertainment One | Release Date: November 1, 2013 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
35
METASCORE
Generally unfavorable reviews based on 28 Critic Reviews
Positive:
1
Mixed:
14
Negative:
13
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
63
McClatchy-Tribune News ServiceRoger MooreOct 29, 2013
Watts masters Diana’s look — the way she carried her head and used those wide, coyly expressive eyes — but is only passable at impersonating the voice. Read full review
60
The New York TimesManohla DargisOct 31, 2013
Anchored by Ms. Watts’s sympathetic performance, it humanizes the woman behind the smile, the helmet hair and the myth. Read full review
60
Los Angeles TimesRobert AbeleOct 31, 2013
Flawed yet intimate, Diana respects its subject's hopes, strengths, weaknesses and legacy and, in the extraordinary Watts, boasts a formidably empathetic advocate. Read full review
60
Time OutJoshua RothkopfOct 29, 2013
Watts’s work is extraordinary, sometimes keying off the same illicit register as "Mulholland Drive"; she risks being goofy, awkward and bratty. Read full review
50
Philadelphia InquirerSteven ReaNov 1, 2013
In truth, the only hazardous material to be found in Diana - the title role assumed bravely, if mistakenly, by Naomi Watts - is the screenplay. Read full review
50
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleOct 31, 2013
It's a gallant battle against flawed material, and Hirschbiegel fights it to a draw. Read full review
50
The A.V. ClubIgnatiy VishnevetskyOct 31, 2013
There’s a germ of a smart biopic in Diana; the problem is that it’s tucked away behind a clunky structure and even clunkier dialogue. Read full review
50
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperOct 31, 2013
It’s a fractured fairy tale, penned in clunky strokes. Read full review
50
Village VoiceAmy NicholsonOct 29, 2013
Diana is a Lifetime movie in sensible pumps, at once too silly to be taken seriously, yet so self-serious it rarely allows us to giggle. Read full review
42
Film.comKate ErblandNov 2, 2013
The result is a film that grows worse with each passing minute, as the vibrant and complex Diana is reduced down to a daft, dumbstruck love addict, a biopic that tries desperately to humanize an already beloved and relatable human being and makes her look comically idiotic and empty in the process. Read full review
40
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzNov 8, 2013
The story of her life is pretty well-known. But in Diana, it’s not particularly well told. Read full review
40
The DissolveKeith PhippsOct 31, 2013
The amusements here are mostly of the unintentional kind. Read full review
40
The Hollywood ReporterStephen DaltonSep 11, 2013
Halfway between a guilty pleasure and a missed opportunity, it makes the crucial mistake of treating curious viewers like deferential subjects, demanding far more sympathy than it deserves. Read full review
40
The TelegraphDavid GrittenSep 9, 2013
It’s hardly fascinating. It doesn’t offer new facts about the Princess’s life. And it certainly doesn’t explain her complexity or contradictions. Read full review
40
VarietyCharles GantSep 9, 2013
While mostly swerving past the pitfall of tastelessness, this sincerely intended account of the last two years of Princess Diana’s life risks an even more perilous roadblock: dullness. Read full review
38
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliNov 2, 2013
Sixteen years after her death, Princess Diana is still capable of generating interest, which is probably the only reason why this dull, pointless movie was greenlighted. Read full review
38
USA TodayClaudia PuigOct 31, 2013
This wrongheaded biopic that bears her name does nothing to burnish her legacy. In fact, the tedious movie lacks any insight into the characters involved, and surely would have the late Princess of Wales rolling in her grave. And it can't be easy on her sons to see their mother depicted in such a one-dimensional fashion. Read full review
38
Boston GlobeTy BurrOct 31, 2013
Hirschbiegel and Watts don’t have the nerve for camp. Even a scene of a rejected Diana back at Kensington, forlornly playing Bach at her piano while mascara streams down her face, is played gloomily straight. Read full review
30
Austin ChronicleLouis BlackNov 20, 2013
Ultimately, it is as though this is a Disney film – The Princess and the Doctor – not a real life biopic. Read full review
25
RogerEbert.comAli ArikanNov 1, 2013
This narcissistic quality is the film's true undoing. Read full review
25
Washington PostStephanie MerryOct 31, 2013
Diana isn’t just an egregious case of rewriting history, but one of oversimplifying it. Read full review
25
New York PostLou LumenickOct 31, 2013
The schmaltzy Diana is directed at a dirge-like pace by German director Oliver Hirschbiegel, whose film “Downfall’’ depicted the final days of Hitler and provided one of the Internet’s most enduring memes. Read full review
20
New York Daily NewsElizabeth WeitzmanNov 1, 2013
You certainly won’t learn anything of interest about the Princess of Wales in Oliver Hirschbiegel’s misguided new biopic. But Diana can be declared a success in one regard — its vacant inanity serves to remind us of the perpetual indignities forced upon this unlucky Lady. Read full review
20
Time Out LondonCath ClarkeSep 18, 2013
A right royal mess. Read full review
20
EmpireAngie ErrigoSep 16, 2013
More terrible and tacky than one could have imagined, it will soon be forgotten and consigned to the True Movies channel to play alongside television movies about Karen Carpenter, Jayne Mansfield and Jackie Kennedy. Read full review
20
The GuardianPeter BradshawSep 6, 2013
Poor Princess Diana. I hesitate to use the term "car crash cinema". But the awful truth is that, 16 years after that terrible day in 1997, she has died another awful death. Read full review
16
The PlaylistKevin JagernauthOct 31, 2013
A thoroughly dull, conventional tale of two people who can't find a compromise on their individual priorities to be together. Read full review
12
Slant MagazineEric HendersonNov 8, 2013
Are the micro-biopics that don't even bother to provide overviews of their famed subjects' entire lives, but instead lean on the spectacle of celebrity impersonation, the new camp? Read full review
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