Courtesy Komplizen Film
Movies
Perhaps we ought to advance with caution when it comes to the cinematic version of a real-life figure like Diana Spencer—someone whose life has evolved into a kind of international mythology. But if you’ve seen any of director Pablo Larraín’s other works (Jackie, No, Neruda) you’ll know advancing with caution isn’t really an option.
At Christmas in 1991, Princess Diana’s marriage to Prince Charles has collapsed. As the family outcast, she was haunted (literally and metaphorically) by the then-future’s uncertainty and the violence faced by royal women in the past. Over the course of the holiday weekend, Diana’s psychological state becomes a threat in and of itself. It may also have been her only way out.
There’s little about Spencer that isn’t astonishing. It follows in the shadow of Larraín’s Jackie to become similar in craft and scope, and is all but guaranteed to leave audiences dumbfounded by the time its credits roll. Kristen Stewart’s performance as the titular former Princess of Wales is either a one-off fluke, or she’s been catapulted into one of the most transformative portrayals we’ve seen in years that didn’t require suffocating the lead actor in hours of make-up (looking at you, Vice); this could be a turning point for her ability as a performer.
Where perhaps we run into trouble is in the film’s limited understanding of how Diana’s actual deeds shone, such as her work de-stigmatizing AIDS patients or campaigning for the removal of land mines in Southern Africa. But Spencer isn’t a biopic, nor is it pretending to be one. It is, perhaps, a response to a sort of shared imaginative vision of who we think Diana was behind the curtain. Here Larraín helms more of a psychological thriller, and it seems almost as if Diana herself, with a shaking hand, were painting the images before us to express something that can’t quite be expressed in words—a loneliness and hostility toward the real world.
Spencer is far too hyper-realistic to be entirely believable, and yet all too-real in its brutalities. Still, where it lands is far more human than one might expect. The sympathy behind the camera is apparent, just don’t expect any love for British royalty as a larger concept here. Spencer is, fully, a unique kind of horror film that serves only to deliver a message about Diana we already know. But how can one not be gobsmacked by a delivery like this?
9
+ Enthralling; Stewart is unnaturally good
- Will be too untraditional for some
Spencer
Directed by Pablo Larraín
With Kristen Stewart, Sally Hawkins and Sean Harris
Opens Nov 5 at Violet Crown, NR, 111 min
