“The Murder of Princess Diana”
Lifetime Television
Aired on August 25, 2007, from 9- 11 p.m.
We have all come to expect the over-saturation of “all things Diana” when the anniversary of her tragic death approaches. The endless barrage of documentaries, interviews of people who knew her, etc., are trotted out for our viewing at an almost dizzying pace. We also know that this is the time when the conspiracy theorists will again get their chance for an additional 15 minutes of fame, as they speculate on reasons why Princess Diana’s death “had to be” a murder.
On this note, Lifetime Television decided to jump on the bandwagon by airing an original movie based on this conspiracy conjecture, entitled, “The Murder of Princess Diana.” Starring actress Jennifer Morgan as a doggedly curious American reporter named Rachel, who begins to suspect that something is amiss in the story about Diana’s death being merely accidental, it is painfully predictable. As you’d probably guess, she does not accept the official death statements and starts nosing around in places that you already know are bound to get her and other people in some major trouble. She involves her French boyfriend Thomas, a policeman, in investigating the “real” facts. While he is skeptical at first, he eventually believes her and they come up with supposed proof that Diana was purposely killed because she was preggers with her and Dodi Al-Fayed’s love child and/or because she was coming out against land mines. This plot even goes as far as to declare that the princess was murdered by those who took her in the ambulance, to finish off the job of those who intentionally caused her car to crash. It’s amazing how Lifetime was able to condense such a Machiavellian plot into just two short hours!
Of course, everybody is out to get Rachel and Thomas. They get repeated warnings to stop their investigation, potential witnesses disappear, Thomas is beat up and eventually killed and Rachel is just about knocked off while driving through the same tunnel where Diana was killed, in exactly the same manner. She lives and is told, while in her hospital bed, to stop, as any evidence she had has now been compromised by the “bad guys.”
I found myself somewhat irritated by the entire storyline of “The Murder of Princess Diana.”. Instead of admiring the perseverance of the Rachel character, I just was ticked that, in spite of knowing that her constant snooping was endangering others, she kept right on prying, apparently having delusions of grandeur that she could outwit people who were far smarter and more powerful than she was.
The believability factor here was zilch! Come on, does anybody really think that one reporter could end up causing a sophisticated network of international conspirators to shake in their boots? If they were threatened by media speculations, then hundreds of reporters and independent investigators would have been killed off to shut them up. Clearly, since there continue to be stories by television news reporters and book writers suggesting that Princess Di may have been bumped off, obviously nobody is having their lives threatened, making the story line of this movie totally absurd.
Whether or not the “People’s Princess” was murdered, we may never know. Perhaps it makes those who simply can’t fathom the idea of such a young, beautiful and exceptional human being having her life shortened by something as common as a car crash feel better if they can blame her demise, instead, on some dramatic reason.
It seems that this was behind the making of “The Murder of Princess Diana”, but Lifetime should have spent its creative energies making something that was a far better tribute to her than this trite offering.
