Will they kill me, do you think?
I’ll just say it from the outset. I’ve been a huge fan of Kristen Stewart ever since Twilight. She kind of pulled off the actor’s dream in my opinion; she landed about the biggest payday imaginable by starring in that seemingly interminable series of Twilight movies, one of the biggest franchise juggernauts in film history and, her fortune made, I suspect she hasn’t taken a job for money since. Instead, she’s acted around the indie periphery, giving a series of interesting performances in interesting movies. I think the highest profile Hollywood movie she’s done since is Charlie’s Angels and I don’t think she did that for the money (thankfully, I’d say). I think, for better or worse (worse), she was genuinely invested in doing a more feminist take on the Angels. That didn’t really work out, but, still, I don’t think she did it because she wanted the money from a big franchise. Her Twilight co-star Robert Pattinson kind of did the same thing. And I suspect he’s gotten himself into a big franchise again with The Batman, but I suspect he took it for personal reasons, just like he’s been taking roles in films by the Safdies, James Grey, Claire Denis, because he wanted to, because, you know, who doesn’t want to be Batman. They’re a pair of really compelling and interesting performers. But let’s get to Spencer. Because, much as I find Stewart a very interesting performer, I would never have pulled her name up as the performer to play Princess Diana. I mean, she might have eventually come to mind about twenty actresses in. Thankfully, Pablo Larrain has better insight, because I genuinely think Stewart has given the best performance of her career so far in this unforgettable, really devastating film.
I was a fan of Pablo Larrain’s Jackie and Natalie Portman’s performance there and I remember people talking about how Jackie was kind of a horror film. Angelica Jade Bastien, for instance, just to credit at least one person who talked about it because it is an insightful and interesting lens through which to view the movie, even though I don’t ultimately buy it. I understood what they were talking about, but I didn’t really think it scanned. Maybe Portman’s Jackie was, end of the day, just too unflappable, too impassive and too poised, for me to ever really feel her terror. But I think everything they said about Jackie applies about ten times over to Spencer, which really is a harrowing, deeply immersive psychological horror film. Larrain wants to put you in Diana’s head as she, essentially, suffers a nervous breakdown over a three day Christmas holiday. (Side note: as a fan of Christmas horror, I’m thrilled that we got two really excellent and really unique additions to the Christmas horror canon in 2021, this film and The Green Knight.) So, a viewer who comes to Spencer looking for the story of Diana’s life is simply going to be disappointed, as is anyone who comes expecting a sedate costume drama. The atmosphere of the film is charged with paranoia (is it really paranoia when they’re really after you), isolation, terror and desperation. Johnny Greenwood’s unsettling score is a big part of building that atmosphere as well. It’s a big, bold, never subtle movie and it’s successful in wrestling with the character of Diana and bringing her close to the audience in ways that a more traditional and less audacious movie simply wouldn’t be.
And this is assuredly Kristen Stewart’s show. And as she disappears into this role as I think she never has disappeared into a role before, it’s uncanny seeing her in the iconic outfits, striking the iconic poses. Stewart’s Diana doesn’t actually look like the real Diana, but she captures the vibe and she feels every bit as effortlessly iconic as the real Diana was. And, while the performance is often uncanny as an impersonation, it’s the emotional work that Stewart has put in that brings this Diana to life as a figure of empathy for us. As she feels everything painfully deeply, so do we.
She’s got a fantastic supporting cast. The always brilliant Timothy Spall, one of my favorite character actors, is on hand as an unsettling servant of the royal family, always watching, always calculating, a kind of existential antagonist or, we may wonder as the film starts to end, is he? It’s a layered and fascinating performance of a character that really did keep surprising me as the film progressed. Sally Hawkins is a beam of pure sunshine, one of the few sources of joy for Diana, as a faithful servant/intimate friend. And Sean Harris is, again, predictably excellent as the royal chef. Jack Farthing, an actor I haven’t seen before, is also very good as a chilly Prince Charles.
The film does nail those moments of freedom and happiness as well, I think. A quiet nighttime scene of Diana with her sons is beautifully filmed and acted and is a moment of real peace, a respite from the ratcheting tension and claustrophobia of the rest of the film. And the film doesn’t revere Diana as a paragon of virtue; she’s flawed and, in her pain and woundedness, she often pushes away those who try to reach out to her on some level, even as she suffocates in her loneliness. An outdoor scene with Spall is beautifully played by both performers as you see the previously antagonistic man fumblingly try to connect with Diana on a more human level only to be coldly rebuffed. I think this is probably a confounding movie to a lot of people, not at all what they might be expecting and I applaud Larrain for just really going for it in a big way. Spencer was one of the most intense theatrical experiences I had in 2021 and the emotional impact of it has lingered. Larrain and Stewart absolutely pulled this one off, brought a deeply human Diana to the front of their movie, taken that human person out of the shadow of the Princess and made us see her trauma in a new and fresh way, as an ultimately tragic story, though a story with a few merciful moments of lightness and love. At the end of the day, it’s a masterpiece and one of my two or three favorite movies of 2021. 4 stars.
tl;dr – harrowing, claustrophobic film focuses on putting the viewer inside Princess Diana’s emotional trauma, not telling her story, to masterful effect; Kristen Stewart’s best performance to date. 4 stars.