Spencer (2021)
dir. Pablo Larraín
Rated: R
image: ©2021 Neon
As with his 2016 film, Jackie, director Pablo Larraín has crafted another emotionally charged fable centered around a powerful woman and the impossible circumstances in which she finds herself. I use the word fable to describe Spencer because that’s how the movie describes itself in its opening seconds. “A fable from a true tragedy,” are the words we see as the movie begins. It’s a clever way for Larraín and screenwriter Steven Knight to immunize themselves from charges of historical inaccuracy.
The word fable also readies Spencer’s audience for something fantastical. Larraín has made a biopic by way of psychological horror here; his picture attains an emotional truth by tying its point of view to the heavily subjective mental and emotional state of its protagonist, Diana, Princess of Wales.
Spencer is set over the course of three days during the 1991 Christmas holiday, as Queen Elizabeth and her family travel to the Queen’s remote Sandringham Estate in Norfolk to celebrate. The movie gives us an intimate portrait of the personal hell Diana experienced as her marriage to Prince Charles was falling apart. We also see the toll that the increasing pressure of being a member of the British royal family took on Diana’s fragile mental state.
Being a member of the British royal family might look powerful from the outside. From the inside – and Spencer’s uncanny ability to probe Diana’s emotional and psychological interiority is its greatest achievement – she was anything but powerful. If Spencer and the larger narrative that has formed in the wake of Diana’s death a quarter-century ago is to be believed, the Princess of Wales, born Diana Frances Spencer, felt like a prisoner within her royal trappings.
The royals who became Diana’s family treated her coolly, to say the least. Her husband brazenly continued a love affair with another woman both during their supposed storybook romance and throughout their marriage. She suffered from a crippling struggle with bulimia. (In an economical bit of storytelling from Larraín, we’re introduced to this fact when we see Diana washing her hands in a bathroom after throwing up; she takes greater care with the two fingers she used to induce her vomiting.)
Larraín and Knight eschew conventional biopic structure and tropes with Spencer. That might be frustrating to some viewers who aren’t as familiar with the details of Diana’s life. I was born one year before Charles and Diana were wed, have a basic knowledge of their turbulent marriage, and distinctly remember the breathless coverage of Diana’s untimely death.
I would have been more prepared, via historical background, for Larraín’s lyrical structure if I had started working through the fantastic Netflix series The Crown earlier than I did. As it is, I’m about halfway through season two of The Crown, which is set about two decades before Diana will enter the picture.
Spencer offers an even more claustrophobic portrait of life as a British royal than does The Crown, which is saying something.
The only solace Diana finds in her suffocating life is through her two beloved children, Princes William and Harry. It seems unkind, especially considering Spencer’s depiction of Diana, to lay blame at her feet for the unfairness her children suffered due to their mother’s struggles.
Spencer creates a searing portrait of mental illness; it’s a movie rooted in empathy and compassion for the woman suffering from it.
At the heart of that portrait is a phenomenal performance from Kristen Stewart. Quite simply, Stewart is transformed as Diana. Both Knight’s screenplay and Larraín’s direction ask Stewart to carry the bulk of the film’s weight on her back, and the actor is more than up to the task. Stewart achieves much more than merely looking and sounding like her subject, although she does both with an unimaginable fidelity.
As I mentioned earlier, Spencer is a film built on the interiority of its main character, and Stewart delivers it with subtlety and nuance. She inhabits the character fully. Throughout her performance, Stewart is continually hitting multiple notes at once, as she gives us a window into Diana’s depression, anxiety, and a host of other psychological and mental health struggles. Stewart is a lock for an Oscar Best Actress nomination, and I would feel very comfortable betting money that she’ll walk away with the statuette come awards season.
In the hands of a lesser actor, Spencer would have buckled under the weight of what’s demanded from the role. Diana is present in practically every shot of the movie. As is the case with Jackie, Larraín’s camera almost hunts the film’s anguished protagonist. His relentless tracking shots give a sense of Diana’s feelings of constantly being on display.
In one flashback sequence, photographers – only a step above the predatory paparazzi who were at least partially responsible for Diana’s death six short years after the events depicted in Spencer – mercilessly subject the Princess to what seems like thousands of flashbulb pops. Through the brief flashback, where we, and Diana, see the stolen glances between Prince Charles and his lover Camilla Parker Bowles, Larraín recreates the suffocating fishbowl in which Diana must have felt she was trapped. Larraín’s technique of shoving the camera into Stewart’s face during her character’s most anxious moments adds to the movie’s psychological horror aesthetic.
Adding to that aesthetic is Jonny Greenwood’s eerie, disorienting, and darkly beautiful orchestral score. The Radiohead lead guitarist and keyboardist – full disclosure, I might not be totally subjective when it comes to Greenwood’s work, as it’s my fervent belief that Radiohead is one of the best bands ever to create rock music – adds to his resume of atmospheric and haunting film scores. Other movies to which Greenwood has lent his talents include Phantom Thread, You Were Never Really Here, and his sublime masterpiece, the score for There Will Be Blood.
Cinematographer Claire Mathon, who shot the sumptuous Portrait of a Lady on Fire for director Céline Sciamma, gives Spencer a cold, gray tone that saps your energy as you watch it, possibly recreating the way Diana must have often felt in her gilded cage. Even the rather upbeat ending of Spencer turns sour in your mouth when you know the tragic ending coming for Diana after the events depicted in the movie.
Larraín and his collaborators have crafted a haunting vision of a woman who felt adrift within her own family and life. Spencer is a biopic that deftly avoids the pitfalls most common to the genre. It’s an emotionally resonant portrait of a woman trapped within her circumstances.
Why it got 4 stars:
- Anyone tired of biopics that are packed with clichés of the genre and conventional storytelling (looking at you, The Eyes of Tammy Faye) should rush to see Spencer. It’s a fresh take on the biopic that’s emotionally resonant and gorgeous to look at, in it’s own cold, rather bleak way. And that performance from Kristen Stewart reminded me what a movie star is.
Things I forgot to mention in my review, because, well, I'm the Forgetful Film Critic:
- Speaking of Stewart, I’ve really turned a corner on her since becoming a film critic. I think it was lazy thinking on my part and her association with the heavily mocked and maligned Twilight series that made me write her off initially as a frivolous actor. I was wrong. Mea culpa!
- One of my favorite shots in Spencer comes early when a series of military trucks drive directly over the camera. I’m always thrilled by little moments like that which clearly took forethought.
- There are moments (especially the first hallucination) when you don’t know if what you’re seeing is really happening or is only in Diana’s head. It’s a bit disorienting (especially when Diana herself questions if what she is seeing is real), but it’s a rewarding storytelling technique.
- One of the less effective elements of Spencer are the moments when the specter of Anne Boleyn literally haunts Diana. It works thematically, but the execution didn’t really add much to the overall effect of the movie. I did like the mini-drama of discovering who put the book about Boleyn in Diana’s room, in an effort to unnerve her.
- Timothy Spall is in top form as Equerry Major Alistair Gregory, the man tasked with making sure the royal Christmas celebration runs according to plan.
- Was organic food a thing in 1991? Probably for the super rich.
Close encounters with people in movie theaters:
I saw this via an awards season screener disc in my home theater. Spencer is currently available for rent and sale on most streaming platforms.