Kate Middleton’s intimate family film is the most emotional royal home movie ever

There has never been such an emotionally charged film released by the royal family about themselves.

Kate Middleton’s home movie, produced like a Hollywood film, shows courage and optimism about the cruelty of cancer (which she has hopefully conquered) and offers warm support to her family and the wider world – as well as being a soaring hymn of her love for her children, husband and life itself.

It has been a painful nine months for the Princess of Wales. In January, weeks of crass speculation over Kate Middleton’s sudden retreat from public life culminated in an announcement that she had been diagnosed with cancer; soon after, she would undergo abdominal surgery.

The months that followed saw more treatment – preventative chemotherapy – and a tentative step on the road to recovery. This week, she re-emerged into public view, under a very different lens.

In a three-minute video released by Kensington Palace on Monday, Kate made a cinematic return to royal duties. Out of context, you might be forgiven for presuming that the young family are performing in an advert for Boden, or starring in a coming-of-age romcom – it’s glossy, and emotional.

There are violin crescendos, hay bales and laughter; faux cine-film shots, and plenty of slow-mo. There is even a kiss from her prince. At one point, a butterfly is released from Kate’s hands.

Is it a glamorous home movie, or a press release from the royal family? It’s unclear. And that is precisely the point.

“Despite all that has gone before, I enter this new phase of recovery with a renewed sense of hope and appreciation of life,” says Kate, in a softly spoken voiceover. Over the course of the video, we are privy to a snapshot of what she, along with Prince William and their three children – Prince George, 11, Princess Charlotte, nine, and Prince Louis, six – have been dealing with this year. It has been “incredibly tough”, she says; “scary” at times, too.

“The cancer journey is complex, scary and unpredictable for everyone, especially those closest to you,” continues Kate. “With humility, it also brings you face to face with your own vulnerabilities in a way you have never considered before, and with that, a new perspective on everything.”

There’s no denying that it’s a pertinent moment. Kate’s openness about her cancer diagnosis – which the palace chose not to specify in respect of her right to medical privacy – has been widely praised by experts since she went public at the beginning of the year.

The impact that she’s had has already been great: as anyone who has dealt with the blinding blow of cancer will know, it is a daunting, often lonely time. It’s also the ultimate leveller. Money, status, worth – or lack thereof – is rendered meaningless to the violence of chemotherapy. Power is quite indistinguishable between one person nervously awaiting the results of a potentially devastating scan, and another.

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Kate might be a notable exception in many ways – unlimited access to the highest level of care being the most obvious – but, she says, the experience and outpouring of support she and her family have received has “humbled” her. Along with their period of reflection and contemplation during the summer months spent at their home in Norfolk, it has inspired a more intimate public image.

The Waleses are still picture-perfect, of course, as they picnic in a lush green forest – and their “casual” play is meticulously directed – but they’re not as we’ve seen them before: this feels like we are with them on a holiday. Kate in trainers, William buttoned down; a couple in love beside their children. This is a family celebration – Kate’s father makes a tiny cameo role as they play cards in a flash-by scene, and there are funny moments as her children playfully look into the camera lens. It may as well have been directed by Richard Curtis for the emotional spots it hits.

Here they are in their private world for all to see. And, for the most part, they look comfortable.

Kate’s focus is now on “doing what I can to stay cancer-free”, and she will undertake light duties, going forward. She says this period of her life has “above all, reminded William and me to reflect and be grateful for the simple yet important things in life, which so many of us often take for granted”.

For her as a royal, for the best of us, she says, it comes down to something very straightforward: “Of simply loving, and being loved.”

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The royal family’s public image has been through many iterations: the Charles and Diana years made a significant dent in the stiff upper lip and, more recently, Harry and Meghan Markle’s departure has given Kensington Palace a rigorous go at crisis management.

Perhaps this – a family who hug and kiss and publicly support each other through universal sickness – is the beginning of a new royal era: glossy, intimate and loving. With plenty of hay bales and violins, of course.