Sundance Review: ‘The Princess’ treads a well-worn path but shows that, for better or worse, we’re still not over Diana’s death [Grade: B]

There is a vicious cycle that is examined in the new documentary The Princess, which premiered at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival. That cycle is the one that exists between the press and the public, as it’s the same public who decries the press for contributing to the erosion of privacy who are the ones to plunk down their money to keep those same papers in business. It can be said the same thing is happening right now in popular culture. We are living through a time, twenty-four years after her death, when there are more shows, films, books and musicals written about Princess Diana that the obsession seems to border on the grotesque, and yet there is still an appetite for it, no matter how obscene is may be. So what does that really say about us that we, as a culture, can’t seem to get enough of this ultimately tragic figure’s life, and is there really anything new to say that hasn’t already been said?

Director Ed Perkins (who is already in pre-production of a second Diana doc) makes a valiant effort to ask and answer both of those questions in this documentary which tells the story of Diana’s adult life solely through archival footage, from her first moment in the spotlight as the future King of England’s girlfriend to her coffin’s final ride through the streets of her shattered country. There is no revisionist history, no interviews with anyone to offer up their thoughts, no hindsight given, no analysis offered. It simply immerses the viewer in the actual moments as they happened, as they were captured on camera, ultimately telling the story not just of Diana, but of the world that literally consumed her.

Even though the vast majority of the footage is familiar, there is a greater emphasis in The Princess to tone down the idolatry that is usually offered up in any Diana retrospective. In telling her story, it becomes increasingly clear that the desire is to present a full picture of opinion of Diana, both positive and negative, that seemingly existed at the time. Using an interesting mix of man-on-the-street interviews with snippets from talk shows where hosts argue about Diana’s sincerity, the film does take Diana off the pedestal, which creates an even more surprising result of humanizing her. In the twenty-four years since her death, she has been given nearly saintly qualities, so it’s fascinating to hear that not everyone loved her, which, truth be told, only makes her all that more interesting. Was Diana manipulative? Was she selfish? Was she a “monster?”

The Princess offers no answers, but instead takes the viewer on a journey back in time, before the internet, before social media, before cell phones, to a world brought together by a single woman and a country so desperate to cling to its own historical significance and modern relevance that it fed an innocent and sweet young woman into the meat grinder of an insatiable populace. There are many institutions with Diana’s blood on their hands, including the press and the monarchy, but it is the public’s role in her life and death that gets the boldest treatment in the film, and the one that is the most engrossing.

While there are some clearly heavy-handed moments with needlessly graphic hunting footage or home movies following Diana’s death that are misguided, for the most part The Princess does retread a very well-worn path with some ingenuity by offering up different perspectives that may have never been considered before. While there is nothing that can be called fresh and original, the cumulative effect is a reflection on society as a whole, one that is complicit, not just in its acceptance of the dehumanizing sacrifice of a young woman on the altar of curiosity and envy, but the encouragement of it.

Grade: B

This review is from the 2022 Sundance Film Festival. HBO Documentary Films will release The Princess later this year. Photo courtesy of the Sundance Institute.