I'm a little bit conflicted about this movie. The great locations, production design, costumes, overall setting and supporting characters make it a fantastic environment for "the" Diana of the movie to shine onto the silver screen. And yet it doesn't really happen, at least for me.

I expected great things for this. I loved the idea of Kristen Stewart as Diana, and the stills that were released of the movie before it came out seemed to support this image. It's when she starts trying to "play" Diana, moving and speaking like her, the authenticity seems to fade. It's just not wholly convincing to me, no matter how hard I try, no matter how hard I wanted to love it. It's not a bad performance at all, don't get me wrong, but as I said to my movie-theater companion, when you want to portray a character like this in a story like this, it has to be spot on, has to be almost perfect, for it to work. And it doesn't make it.

I LOVED the costumes. Perfectly set in time, beautiful dresses and suits, Stewart is gorgeous in almost everything she wears in the movie.

We all know the story of Diana, and I guess most people like me filled in the blanks with the idea of a womand who had to have been at her wits' end, lost and looking for anything to help her steady her right on the ground where she wanted to be. The first scene confronts you (and her) with that idea. At a petrol station looking for directions, you (and her as well I think) get confronted with the reality that she really, really does not fit in with the regular people. So even if she would be able to get out of the toxic Windsor family environment, she would never lead a normal life.

You get the idea that the movie is telling the story of how Diana came to be at her wits' end, but near the end of the movie you realize that she has been at the limit of her being for the whole of the film. That doesn't really come across from the screen any earlier to me. And although it has a happy ending, I'm having trouble being at peace with the film. It doesn't give me any answers, lack of a better description for my feeling of emptiness noted. I want to believe Diana could have gone/went through the KFC drivethrough with her boys, ate chicken with them near the Thames and was at peace, at least for a little, but I can't wholeheartedly say that I do.

Perhaps that would be denial of what we know to be reality, a woman who would be haunted by press at every step in her life after meeting, marrying and divorcing one of the Royal British family. How could she ever be at peace. Pablo Larraín does get that across, that eerie feeling of uneasiness, but not really knowing where it comes from.

For the TL;DR, I didn't love the film as much as I expected or wanted to, but I did love certain things about it. In some ways, Kristen Stewart is nothing short of amazing in this, and Pablo Larraín has created a brilliant film. My heart aches a bit after watching it, both because I really wanted to like it more than I do, and because we know the fate of Lady Di and this film depicts only a little bit of what we think she had to go through over those years.