Cast: Elizabeth Debicki, Imelda Staunton, Jonathan Pryce, Khalid Abdalla, Dominic West and others
Creator: Peter Morgan
Director: Alex Gabassi, Christian Schwochow
Streaming On: Netflix
Language: English (with subtitles)
Runtime: Four episodes, around 50 minutes each.
The Crown Season 6 (Part 1) Review: What’s It About:
Paris – the busiest city in the world, yet one woman brought it to a standstill. The woman they used to call the most beautiful woman in the world. The woman who wanted to be a free bird but felt burdened by the weight of The Crown. The woman who was named Diana but became the Princess Of Wales once she was married to Prince Charles, son of Queen Elizabeth II and Duke of Edinburgh, Prince Philip. While The Crown is a web series that re-imagined and told the tale of the most successful Queen in world history – Queen Elizabeth II, season 6 focuses on her daughter-in-law, Princess Diana, and her free-spirited life after she was divorced and left the Royal Empire to life as she wanted to.
The Crown Season 6 (Part 1) Review: Script Analysis:
Princess Diana and her life have always been a subject that has intrigued the world. While her accidental death adds more intrigue, the first four episodes of The Crown Season 6 focus on Princess Diana and her love life a few weeks before she died in a tragic car crash. Now, this is a story the world already knows. So the web series imagines a goofy-cooked-up tale about what might have happened before the car crash. Who she was with, where she was, how she was doing, what she was doing, and what if, what if not. In short, a lot of imagination.
Guess the best part of imagination? Creativity starts dying a slow death as soon as you start stretching it. Something that made this web series terrible with every passing minute, to the point that it turns more painful than Princess Diana‘s death.
The first four episodes offer no storyline but just present Princess Diana as a woman who probably was on a long holiday trip in her life. She enjoys spending time with her kids, plays football and Uno with them, does a little charity here and there, and then again enjoys. All this happens while the series, which clearly is obsessed with Diana, tries to sympathize and empathize with her as a woman who was hopelessly in love with Prince Charles!
In short, there is no script to analyze in the first four episodes of this series, which started on a brilliant note in Part 1 and maintained the quality and essence of the re-telling of the story of one of the most loved Empires which managed to win trust, love, and respect over the years – The British Empire.
The Crown Season 6 (Part 1) Review: Star Performance:
Elizabeth Debicki, as Diana, Princess of Wales, tries way too hard to make sure she enters the caricature mold given to her. She tries to walk, talk, smile, and even blink like her. However, the effort is too visible to not get noticed. If efforts could make one win laurels, she would have them all, but talk about making an impact, she doesn’t. It’s just loose and frivolous when it comes to connecting in any one scene! Not even her confrontation with Prince Charles or Dodi!
Imelda Staunton, as Queen Elizabeth, has very little to offer in the four episodes. Though her dilemma as the grandmother to the boys, as a mother to a son wanting validation for his girlfriend Camilla, and as a wife who might keep her bruised ego aside to listen to her husband, all blended together make up for a good act, something Staunton knows by this time!
Jonathan Pryce, as Prince Philip, has hardly any existence. Dominic West as Prince Charles, Prince of Wales, might be an example of epic miscast. He clearly seems to be the right soul in the wrong body. His character arc had the most to offer after Diana – a son seeking validation, a lover making up for her partner, an ex-husband mending ways, a mourning ex-husband pondering over his decisions, a man of regrets, a trying too hard to be good father – You see so much that he gets caught up delivering some and mostly none!
Khalid Abdalla as Dodi Fayed was impressive, and so was Salim Daw as Mohamed Al-Fayed. However, their performances get killed and overshadowed when they could have been one of the best with the best highlights and conversations.
The Crown Season 6 (Part 1) Review: Direction & Music:
Peter Morgan created this obsessed piece to satisfy his figments of imagination, and while Alex Gabassi tries to weave at least a narrative in the first episode, Christian Schwochow totally loses control from the second episode onwards! What follows next is an aimless re-telling, with everyone knowing what is about to happen but getting pangs of ‘Why God Why’ witnessing this shoddy and boring re-creation of the most epic historical event of the world!
Martin Philip’s music adds more disaster to this already-loaded recipe. With every eerie piece building up, clearly indicating ‘Diana is about to die,’ keeps on nagging so much that you just want to put this entire thing on the edit table for yourself and mute that layer for real!
The Crown Season 6 (Part 1) Review: What Works:
Despite so much, this series, which offered brilliance in the first two seasons, manages to create some moments with its dialogues. The entire four episodes conclude with Diana’s death and funeral, where the subplots and themes related to the two boys try to create an impact. Be it Prince Charles not informing them about their mother’s death and letting them sleep and saying, “While they’re sleeping, they still have a mother!” Or, while the boys walk along with the Royal Family for Princess Diana’s final burial, Prince William innocently asks, “Why are they crying for someone they didn’t know?” The answer by his grandfather makes up a little, for a brief moment, created there.
The Crown Season 6 (Part 1) Review: What Doesn’t Works
This season, in its entirety, does not seem to work at all. It is full of flaws and has the most shoddy re-telling of a story that deserved so much better. Peter Morgan probably was so passionate about delivering the story of Princess Diana that his figment of imagination didn’t know where to stop. So much so that he even hallucinated about her Ghost having the final word with Queen Elizabeth and Prince Charles! Diana was a woman who did not find peace, and Morgan clearly wanted the audience to feel restless, but it backfired!
The Crown Season 6 (Part 1) Review: Last Words:
Princess Diana did not get to keep the man of her dreams but the friend of her dreams, giving the brave smile of a runner-up, not a winner. This line from the show clearly summarizes it all. What it could have been and what it turned out to be. In one of the episodes, she says, “We can never see our own problems clearly. Always need a trusted friend to guide us!” We wish Peter Morgan had that guide!
For more recommendations, read Loki Season 2 Review here.
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