I really don’t know whether I liked this or not. On the one hand, I’m a sucker for melodrama like this, and as soon as the great music kicked in over the opening shot of a street strewn with flowers, I began priming myself for a tear-fest. I love Emily Blunt, Miranda Richardson, Bill Nighy – and they all more than earn the accolades that were bestowed on the acting over the past year. On the other hand, this all to frequently lets its artsy pretension completely overwhelm its aspirations to basic honesty. It doesn’t surprise me when I find wretch-inducing comments over at the IMDb such as “The only thing is, I reckon you have to be ready to look deeply into what is actually happening because I (being a drama/English Lit student) thought it was brilliant, but my less creative friends thought it was dull,” and others to the effect of, “If you don’t like it, then you don’t get it,” (vomit).

Overall, I think it kind of works. The only thing I can actually pinpoint specifically that I didn’t like was the Robert Lindsay narration. I might be wrong, but did it just magically appear halfway through? In any case, it certainly wasn’t as intrusive and annoying in the first half as it was in the second and, in particular, at the end, which it pretty much ruined for me. I felt like I was watching International Velvet again, lol, in a bad way.

I think also even though it’s slightly longer than the average TV movie, it tries to cover way too much and never focuses enough on any one thing to get far beyond “better than average”. There’s commentary on celebrity, a painful father-daughter relationship which I personally would’ve liked more of, politics, grief following the loss of a child, and the backdrop of Diana’s death. It’s too much for one film, especially one bound to the small screen. But the tears did come, and the central song that plays at different points is beautiful enough to make it worth a watch.

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