The Story of Diana

A really beautifully well made documentary. Lovely insight into the whole Diana story. A must watch.

The Story of Diana is so powerful that it will stay with you for a while after you watch it. It is a gripping tale of the rise and fall of Lady Di. The makers do an incredible work of putting together voices from the press, the photographers, her inner circle, high society privileged tribe and more.

It is powerful to see her emerge as a woman of strength after moving out of the royal family and carving an identity for herself. What touches you the most is how she picked up the ashes and was ready to move to a happier place in life when she met an unfortunate end.

The account put together in the film from the point she met with the accident to the last frame showing her final goodbye will leave a lump in your throat. Your heart will go out to the young William and little Harry as they follow their mother's body.

The Story of Diana has a roller coaster of emotions - you will feel rapturous, angry, heavy-hearted and still happy when you see Lady Di's infectious smile.

And I grew up with the story of Lady Diana. This before cable tv. I really think that she tried to use her position, her place in the world, to make lives of unfortuned people, better. I really think that papparazzis are a bunch of assholes and they should all be shot.

I am neither a monarchist nor a republican. Mostly I don't even think about the royals, let alone have any particular interest in them. Yet after watching this excellent documentary almost by mistake (I put it on randomly while I was eating), I found myself hooked.

As documentaries go, it was one of the best I've seen - on any subject. Artfully edited, with unusually insightful, relevant, and intelligent contributions from the various talking heads (apart from Wayne Sleep who was a bit cringe-inducing), and impressively researched archive and photographic material that told the story of Diana's life more cohesively and coherently than I've ever seen done before.

Excellent narrative storytelling that sucked me in, and transported me back to those days in a way that few other documentaries have achieved. I went into it thinking I pretty much knew the entire story, having lived through it at the time, but by the end I felt newly enlightened and amazed at how much I'd not been aware of, either at the time or in the years since.

After watching this, I was suddenly keen to watch more documentaries about Diana and the other royals, and it says a lot that after three hours it left me wanting more. (The other documentaries that I watched were not nearly as good). Overall, I'm inclined to give this one top marks. I only docked it a star because of Wayne Sleep's contributions.

Shown over a two-day period (August 9 and August 10, 2017) on network TV, Diana Spencer is fairly portrayed as a fairy tale princess of our modern day who made the best of her situation. While she fought back the best she could against the infidelities of Charles during her marriage, her manipulative ways and her own infidelities tarnished her reputation. If nothing else, she was a goodwill ambassador for the British monarchy and was influential for the projects she was most passionate about. And, she was a wonderful mother. Perhaps, that is the saddest part of her story, that she never got the chance to be the wonderful grandmother that she could have been had she lived.