The film Diana, just opened in London and super-panned, is directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel. The Evening Standard review pointed out Hirschbiegel is best known for Downfall, about the last 12 days of Hitler’s life, and went on to say in its leaden way this was possibly as sound a preparation as any for tackling the last two years of Diana’s. MoL says ha ha ha. Other reviews fell into the usual elephant trap of taking sides: fabulously awful; mediocre; pointless; lazy mid-afternoon stuff. All sounds fine; MoL is always looking for such afternoon stuff. The Independent on Sunday (which has just fired all its critics) went the other way, claiming in its republican stance that Diana was the most fascinating woman of the 20th century. All reviews failed to grasp the tackiness of the original saga whose importance was the elevation of soap to a sublime level, culminating in Sir Elton playing the funeral gig. In terms of the big sea change in British culture in the 1980s-1990s, Diana was its perfect representative, in social trajectory (Sloane Ranger, uber-yuppie, royalty, perfect fusion of pop and branding) as well as greatest martyr, sly victim crushed by her own fame, the apotheosis of Ballard’s Crash. MoL notes in retrospect: Rod Stewart’s adoption of the Diana look in the MTV video Some Guys Have All the Luck (1984). The sentimentalisation of grief after Diana’s death (1997) which made the country seem more Catholic, Mexican even, than Protestant, paving the way for the conversion of Tony Blair. In the recesses of Lord MoL’s feverish dreams, Diana (pre-bling but blingy) belongs with The Sopranos (1999-2007), indistinguishable from Edie Falco, another dynastic victim and patron saint of passive aggression. At least the IoS review pointed out how horrible the royal family was, in general and specifically to her, and how successfully it has been rehabilitated since by the efforts of Dame Helen, Lord Colin Firth and the British film industry (The Queen, The King’s Speech). The IoS also noted the decision of the filmmakers to concentrate on Diana’s late affair with a Pakistani, an immigrant class subjected to constant racism – not a plot you could get away with in Downton Abbey. In the run-up to the film the old conspiracy theories surfaced, with the new information that the current Prime Minister’s wife secretly knew all along. Since the opening, the ex-SAS man who made the allegations, has, we are told, gone abroad. PS to casting director: Naomi Watts looks much more like a young Camilla. Rod Stewart is the one who really looks like Diana; they should have got him.