Diana’s Wedding

Norway, 2020

For many audiences who are not as young as they used to be, the title Diana’s Wedding would immediately bring to mind the 1981 Westminster Abbey ceremony where Diana Spencer married Prince Charles. Not sure whether Diana’s Wedding means very much to those under 40 since it is 40 years since that wedding. However, it is this wedding that is the point of reference for this comedy/drama about marriage.

The film opens in 1981, an exuberantly happy atmosphere as Liv and Terje are married. The wedding is important for them when they name their daughter, born 1981, Diana. Actually, as the film progresses, there are continued references to Diana and Prince Charles, happiness leading into unhappiness, Charles’ behaviour with Camilla, the separation, Diana and Dodi Al Fayed, and expressions of great grief at the news of her death.

It would be interesting to hear the Royal family’s response to the use of the wedding for this film, for British reactions. (Perhaps displeasure.) However, for the rest of the world, and in Europe, and throughout the Commonwealth, there are many mixed feelings about Diana and Charles.

But, of course, the focus is on Liv and Terje, the birth of their daughter, the young son, Cato. Liv and Terje tend to be a happy-go-lucky couple, he at work with his mates, she at home, all at a holiday camp where the little Diana follows her father as he goes with the blokes to a strip club – and later draws photos of the pole-dancers to her mother’s dismay and anger against her husband. So, this is what marriages are like. Love, sometimes over the top, huge mistakes, eventual forgiveness, love again.

But this is by contrast with the couple across the street, Olav and Unni, welcoming the newcomers, revealing a contrasting marriage, he rather self-contained, concerned about his health, sometimes with a roving eye, she also a touch prim but gradually, with her drinking, loosening up. They have a daughter, Irene, and Diana and Irene are the best of friends.

Then, shock. It is 2020. Diana and Irene are still friends. It was big, bearded, burly, and a genial mediator in the family as well as the disc jockey. Diana is about to be married. And what about the couples? Liv and Terje are just the same but the often-embarrassed and angry Diana doesn’t really want them at her wedding. Olav and Unni are much the same except that he is still self-preoccupied and Unni has become more desperately unhappy, taking it out on Irene and criticising her figure and weight.

Any resolution? You will have to see. However, the film’s overall tone is less like the unhappy marriage of Charles and Diana but the belief that, no matter what the ups and downs, no matter what the squabbles and tantrums, the underlying love is most important.