The death of Queen Elizabeth II of England has spawned a media frenzy to commemorate her Majesty’s life as England’s longest and, perhaps, most beloved reigning monarch. Entertainment writers have been focusing on steering viewers toward the litany of movies and shows with her story, such as Helen Mirren’s The Queen and Claire Foy’s The Crown. An unlikely yet worthy choice, however, would be HBO's The Princess, the arresting documentary which stitches together Princess Diana’s public life, from her engagement to the Prince of Wales (now soon to be crowned King Charles II) to her final, tragic moments which took her life in a paparazzi-fueled car crash in a Paris tunnel.
Unlike most documentaries, which rely heavily on re-enactments and on-screen interviews, HBO’s The Princess uses a neo-traditional, PBS-like narrative approach that barely hints at any bias, a challenging feat to accomplish when it's about one of last generation's most sensational headlines. The entire film is stitched together solely out of news media footage, paparazzi videos, private videos from tourists, public events, red carpets, and on-camera interviews with Princess Diana herself. There are no re-enactments, no on-screen interviews, no narrator, just the evidence alone like a heavy mirror bouncing back an image of itself, for better or worse.
The Princess Is Candid and Focuses on Diana's Voice
Whether intentionally or not, the filmmakers used the media’s own footage to portray their complicity in her death. Fingers are pointed, but not outright; in the end, no one is mentioned, but everyone is to blame. That type of subtle dig takes an enormous amount of gall, an achievement only matched by the fact that the documentary doesn’t just stop at digging at the news media but also at the royal establishment itself, without as much as saying a single word, or even showing a single person from the royal family on screen. Although IMDB lists the late Queen Elizabeth as having an uncredited part in the documentary, third after Princess Diana and the new King Charles, she is barely seen in the film.
However, the face and voice seen and heard more loudly than anyone else’s are that of Princess Diana herself. Allowing her to speak directly to the camera, and confront those who chose to harm her, is the film’s most daring choice. Bringing to light the Princess’s eating disorder and hauntingly predicting that she would never be Queen is bold, provocative, and inspiring. It is almost the mirror image of the horrifying Spencer, starring Kristen Stewart, except that in this reflection, the horror is in the real-life footage, not in the production and sound design.
That interview, which Princess Diana gave to the BBC in 1995, serves as a perfect climax to the film, a well-tailored moment by Academy Award-nominated documentary filmmaker Ed Perkins, who truly shines in the driver’s seat of this explosive ride. The thoughtfulness in the rhythm and the pacing of the story gives what could have been another snoozy newsy expose on a topic that has been covered ad infinitum an action-paced feel that rivals the latest Tom Cruise joint.
Few documentaries are able to pull off that type of nail-biting, grip-the-edge-of-your-seat excitement like Exit Through The Gift Shop and Man on Wire. Others like Paris is Burning, slow burn, enveloping complex characters like a conundrum inside an enigma and then delivering them with a mystery.
HBO’s The Princess Is Strangely Similar to Hulu’s The Princess
Oddly enough, watching The Princess was reminiscent of watching the other princess-themed movie that came out this summer on Hulu, also called The Princess. It stars the phenomenal Joey King.
Both are stories about Princesses who are forced to marry someone they shouldn’t and the brutal fights they endure to escape the dangerous duty that shackles them. The medieval soldiers that violently chase Joey King’s the Princess through the innards of a castle with shields and swords could be stand-ins for the reckless paparazzi that chased Princess Diana through a Paris tunnel with motorcycles and cameras. In both stories, each Princess must come through with their truth to survive, even if it means tearing their wedding gowns to shreds.
Of course, real life is nothing like the movies, and unlike Hulu’s fairy tale action flick, where the Princess lives to tell her tale in a happy ending, Princess Diana’s ends in tragedy because that’s how it sometimes works in real life. There are consequences for actions, and rarely does a story end with a happily ever after nowadays, especially in the news.
That is, unless you are Queen Elizabeth the II, who lived longer than any other monarch, across world wars, cold wars, info wars, and media wars, in her beloved castle, months after celebrating a diamond jubilee. Maybe Princesses don’t always have happy endings, but Queens certainly do.