Spencer (2021)
SHOULD I SEE IT?
YES
The buzz and the hype is real - Kristen Stewart gives one of the best performances of the year and of her career, portraying Diana, Princess of Wales.
Spencer is a psychological, cerebral drama that presents a compelling look at a woman desperate to break out of her trappings.
This is not a by-the-book, as-expected biopic of Diana, Princess of Wales. Because this is an imagining of events, based in truth, and since the film is framed as a domestic horror film, audiences are going to be very surprised by the final product.
NO
This is not a by-the-book, as-expected biopic of Diana, Princess of Wales. Because this is an imagining of events, based in truth, and since the film is framed as a domestic horror film, audiences are going to be very surprised by the final product.
The melodramatic moments may play false and tacked on, with the extremes Diana shows on screen leaving some to find the film ill-fitting and improper to her legacy.
You saw director Pablo Larraín’s 2016 film Jackie and found the film and the storytelling approach to be completely unappealing.
OUR REVIEW
Pablo Larraín is a filmmaker who seems, as of late, to make horror films, just not the horror films we typically think of. In varying degrees, with his recent work (Neruda, Jackie), he places us with people who are trapped within their surroundings, wrestling with very little hope of exiting their situations gracefully. In Spencer, his latest film, Kristen Stewart disappears into the role of Diana, Princess of Wales (Spencer, her maiden name), married into a royal family who cannot stand her and a husband in Prince Charles who might like her even less.
Before we see even one frame of Spencer, we see a title card indicating that Larraín’s film is “a fable from a true tragedy.” And then for the next 15-20 minutes, we experience a fluid series of images and camera movements and a staggering, impressive score from Jonny Greenwood, with only a paucity of dialogue.
As Larraín shows us a vast world of wealth, privilege, and protection, Diana looks and feels trapped and suffocated from the opening frames. The setting, captured brilliantly in the film’s opening minutes, is Christmas, c. 1991, where a three-day feast at Queen Elizabeth II’s sprawling British estate, Sandringham, is set to take place.
Stewart’s transformational performance is remarkable in evoking how powerless she feels, even if one disruption of her creation could spoil the entire weekend. She acquiesces, though she is bristling within her skin every moment she has to play nice or smile big or pretend to share feelings of love any longer with Charles (Jack Farthing).
As Greenwood’s score rises and falls, Larraín closes in Sandringham’s walls all around Diana. The estate appears to be something of a character Diana must also overcome, brought brilliantly to life by Guy Hendrix Dyas’ detail-rich and gorgeous set design. In this setting, the Princess is spiraling emotionally. She wrestles with thoughts of suicide. She battles bulimia. She finds comfort with her sons, William (Jack Nielen) and Harry (Freddie Spry), and kinship with her personal dresser and attendant, Maggie (Sally Hawkins).
The Princess also sees the ghost of Anne Boleyn (Amy Manson) and seeks advice from her. As Diana contemplates her own demise as a means of escape, these events are a symbolic compendium of the complex issues she grapples with.
Stewart’s work might be so moving and believable because, in part, she is recapturing the real-life intensity she experienced when everyone knew her as Bella from Twilight. For a minute, Stewart and co-star Robert Pattinson were the biggest celebrities in the world, and that sudden rise to fame took a major toll on each of them. The 31-year-old actor’s work here is unlike anything she has done before, her creation of Diana so haunting and desperate. Larraín’s embrace of melodrama and occasional hyperbole fails to sink Spencer because Stewart makes all these moments feel real.
Princess Diana never broke a massive necklace of pearls, saw them fall into her soup, and then consumed them spoonful by spoonful in front of horrified royals at the dinner table. What scenes like that depict however, what Stewart conveys so strikingly, is that when pushed to the emotional limits - one can relate to those moments where we might consider taking any measure possible to break out of a long-suffering situation. Stewart crafts a woman desperate to find the exit door, willing to do anything to get out of a terrible, soul-defeating marriage.
We actually root for her, but find ourselves fearful for her overall well-being.
Because Spencer is laser-focused on Diana’s story, the surrounding cast seem underwritten and perhaps unintentionally, many supporting characters feel like caricatures. They leer and stare. Turn up their noses. Mock and dismiss. Screenwriter Steven Knight (“Peaky Blinders”) places every significant moment through the perspective of Diana, with Larraín finding ample opportunity to try and make us just as uneasy as his main subject.
Spencer, admittedly, is a lot. Purists may balk at the presentation. Suffice to say, this is not the Princess Diana biopic people may be anticipating. Unconventional in its construction, this is more a cerebral horror film, similar to Larraín’s 2016 film, Jackie, which saw Natalie Portman portray Jackie O grieving and trying to come to grips in the days following the assassination of her husband, President Kennedy.
All in all, Spencer feels more akin to something like The Shining. Larraín places Stewart’s princess in a world blurred of imagination and reality; a cracked mosaic we struggle to see with absolute clarity and yet, much like Diana herself, the film remains something we cannot turn away from.
CAST & CREW
Starring: Kristen Stewart, Timothy Spall, Sally Hawkins, Amy Manson, Jack Nielen, Freddie Spry, Jack Farthing, Sean Harris, Stella Gonet, Richard Sammel, Elizabeth Berrington, Lore Stefanek.
Director: Pablo Larraín
Written by: Steven Knight
Release Date: November 5, 2021
NEON