Charles and Diana: Unhappily Ever After. The Television Movie

CHARLES AND DIANA: 

UNHAPPILY EVER AFTER

When the now-King Charles III and his first wife, the late Diana, Princess of Wales were first married, the public was treated to two television movies. The Royal Romance of Charles and Diana and Charles & Diana: A Royal Love Story were fairy tales. I do not believe that Charles and Diana: Unhappily Ever After is accurate either. Oddly more interested in the York saga than the Wales one, Charles and Diana: Unhappily Ever After is curiously quite kind to our battling couple.

The royal romance of Charles, Prince of Wales (Roger Rees) and his new bride, Lady Diana Spencer (Catherine Oxenberg) seemed to be born out of genuine affection. Charles does try to guide Diana into her new life and responsibilities as the Princess of Wales. He even brings her orange juice after she made a faux pas of going into the kitchen, shocking the kitchen staff with her informality. However, cracks start emerging.

The biggest crack is Charles' dear friend, Camilla Parker-Bowles (Jane How). He enjoys Camilla's company more than he does Diana's. It does not help that Her Majesty the Queen, Elizabeth II (Amanda Walker) is not sympathetic to Diana's plight. Diana fortunately has an ally in Sarah Ferguson (Tracy Brabin), who soon becomes Her Royal Highness the Duchess of York. Sarah is all about having fun. Diana, who is married to a stick-in-the-mud like Charles, is also just a girl who wants to have fun. Charles for his part loves being a father. He also detests the popularity that his wife has achieved. 

Sarah makes a spectacle of herself when photos of her "consulting with her financial advisor" come to light. Will the Yorks outdo the Waleses in embarrassing headlines and a failed marriage? Will Diana be able to confront his husband's mistress?

There were at least two elements in Charles and Diana: Unhappily Ever After that I found curious. The first is how for a film supposedly centered around the Waleses, the film gave a great deal of attention to the Yorks. The film, I think, pretty much ends on Sarah and the now-Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor (Benedict Taylor). My sense is that the production crew found the tawdry antics of Fergie to be more interesting than those of the near-saintly Diana. 

One almost feels for Sarah, Duchess of York. Poor Tracy Brabin had very little to do other than talk endless about how she wanted nothing but fun. I think that except for her final scenes with Andrew and Diana, the word "fun" was used every time that Ferguson was on screen. What Fergie's toe-sucking tricks have to do with Charles and Diana one can only guess at. 

A lot of attention was paid to Sarah Ferguson. People walking into this might be confused if told that it was about Charles and Diana. 

The other element is how surprisingly sympathetic Charles and Diana: Unhappily Ever After is to both of them. Rees made Charles into a mostly kind and loving husband. He starts out as someone who encourages and supports his wife. Other film and television projects about the Wales marriage show him as quick to anger, seething with rage and at many times verbally abusive towards Diana.

Not in Unhappily Ever After. He helps Diana in learning and speaking Welsh. He brings her orange juice after she moans that all she wanted was orange juice. For most of the telefilm, Rees' Charles is actually a pretty pleasant fellow. He can be jealous and thoughtless, but did I mention that he brought her orange juice?

He also is shown as one under immense pressure by his disapproving parents. Even at his son's baptism, he is warned against Diana's growing popularity. It must be hard to be told by your father at your son's christening how wrong you are. 

Nancy Sackett's screenplay also does something that I had not seen before in a Charles and Diana biographical production. In all other versions, Diana deliberately threw herself down a flight of stairs in an effort to cause Charles harm. Unhappily Ever After, conversely, had the fall be an accident. In this version, Diana tripped down the flight of stairs after an argument with Charles. Here, Charles at most did not stand with Diana in her firm opposition to giving birth at Buckingham Palace which was the expressed wish of Her Majesty. 

Near the end of the telefilm, Charles is openly enraged but apparently with good cause. He has seen newspaper photographs of Diana dancing the night away with men. It is a mix of public embarrassment and private hurt that upsets Charles. It might not have been the television movie's intentions. The end result, however, is a production that likes Charles.

Turning to the acting, I find a unique situation. Catherine Oxenberg, daughter of Princess Elizabeth of Yugoslavia, is a second cousin to now-King Charles III. She also has the rare distinction of having played Diana, Princess of Wales more than once. She had played the young Lady Diana in The Royal Romance of Charles and Diana a decade prior. Now, she is back in the role. 

I found Oxenberg to have somehow devolved from her first go-round. Her voice was rather breathy and light. There was little to suggest that Diana was evolving into a strong woman. Even her confrontation with How's Camilla came across as a bit flat.

Roger Rees did much better as Charles. He did not look nor sound like the then-Prince of Wales. However, he made Charles into a dignified man, who tried to do right no matter what. He did look early on as someone who was in love with his wife. As such, his liaison with Camilla did look a bit like it was in Diana's imagination. 

It does not help that I kept confusing Jane How's Camilla Parker-Bowles for Charles' sister, Anne the Princess Royal (Cate Fowler). I think that is because Jane How did not come across as a mistress. She barely came across at all. 

Charles and Diana: Unhappily Ever After is a bit of a misnomer in that they did not end up staying unhappy ever after. I get the pun in the title. It just did not work. Still, the telefilm was serviceable if not particularly insightful into the War of the Waleses. Pity that they did not go with what appears to have been their real desire and made an Andrew & Fergie biopic.

6/10