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Germany, Chile, United Kingdom · 2021
1h 56m
Director Pablo Larraín
Starring Kristen Stewart, Jack Farthing, Sally Hawkins, Timothy Spall
Genre Drama
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In December of 1991, Princess Diana's marriage to Prince Charles has become strained due to his affair with Camilla Parker Bowles. After receiving an apathetic reception at a Christmas Eve dinner with the rest of the royal family, she considers breaking off the marriage and taking the children with her, once and for all.
Doing away with any pretense of docu-realism, Spencer is neither a film about specifics nor any of conventional biopic; it is instead a sort of haunted house chamber piece that doesn’t try to locate the real woman behind the legend — as the title might suggest — as it does to reimagine her within a wholly different pop lexicon.
The Hollywood Reporter by David Rooney
Not everything lands in Spencer, and I often wondered if the film was so set on bucking convention that it would alienate its audience. But it tells a sorrowful story we all think we know in a new and genuinely disturbing light.
All the right people are going to hate Spencer. That’s just how good it is.
Spencer is an intimate speculative drama that stays as close as it can to everything we know about Diana. At the same time, the movie is infused with a poetic extravagance.
The Telegraph by Robbie Collin
The 31-year-old Stewart – who will be instantly and justifiably awards-tipped for this – navigates this perilous terrain with total mastery, getting the voice and mannerisms just right but vamping everything up just a notch, in order to better lean into the film’s melodramatic, paranoiac and absurdist swerves.
Kristen Stewart proves entirely compelling in the title role. She gives an awkward and mannered performance as Diana, and this is entirely as it should be when one considers that Diana gave an awkward and mannered performance herself, garnishing her inbred posh hauteur with studied coquettish asides.
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A very underrated film! Beautiful visuals paired with one of the best scores of 2021. The gothic elements of this film may be hit or miss for some, but I think it adds an interesting layer to a project about one of the most iconic and beloved royals. Biopics often run into the problem of being too generic, and I appreciate that Larraín took risks. Kristen Stewart is almost unrecognizable in this film; she is such a brilliant actor and is only getting better.