"Atrocious and Intrusive" Diana Film Savaged By Critics

The reviews are in - and they aren't pretty.

The new Diana film starring Naomi Watts received its world premiere in Leicester Square last night, and was immediately savaged by critics.

Peter Bradshaw in The Guardian writes:

"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. This is due to an excruciatingly well-intentioned, reverential and sentimental biopic about her troubled final years, laced with bizarre cardboard dialogue – a tabloid fantasy of how famous and important people speak in private....(Naomi Watts) looks like she's in a two-hour Spitting Image sketch scripted by Jeffrey Archer."

In The Telegraph, David Gritten describes "Diana" as a film, "bookended by a redundant piece of lurid sensationalism". Although he concedes that, "Watts makes a decent fist of playing Diana – she wears the clothes well (especially the glamorous ones) and the hair looks first-rate" he adss, "There’s something missing...what’s the point of Diana? 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. That would take a different, better film altogether."

The Times says that Naomi Watts, does "her level best with a squirmingly embarrassing script," and that the film is "atrocious and intrusive".

There are many expressions of disappointment at the turn taken by the career of director Oliver Hirschbiegel, the director of "Downfall". Can a fresh youtube parody of the famous bunker scene as Hitler goes through the reviews be far away?

On Wednesday, in what is now being read as a sign that nervousness about the film was high, Watts stormed out of an interview with BBC radio, apparently offended by one question.

The surprised presenter, Simon Mayo, tweeted that Watts had “seemed a tad uncomfortable with the questions”.