About SPENCER, or « A fable based on a true tragedy » by Pablo Larraín.

It’s not a coincidence that 30min in, HERS is the only face we see among the adult Royal Family. It takes almost a full hour before she even speaks with one.

It’s a clear allegory that The Princess of Wales navigates a “downstairs” world on her own while refusing to live “upstairs”.

The latest in Larrain’s “iconic tortured women series” (see JACKIE, 2016) starts off laying out two juxtaposed worlds: one where lobster is delivered to an army of a kitchen staff by the military, and a motorcade with a vehicle dedicated just for the Royal pets.
The other, where Lady Diana can barely get from point A to Z on her own and therefore gets lost on a rural road she traveled countless times as a child. I suppose this means she was never going to last long in the real world.

This much-hyped film fictionalizes the infamous Last Christmas Diana spent with her political family. It plays out like a monologued trip down insanity lane. Or is she the only sane one in the trap of a world she married into?

Kristen Stewart proves an unexpected dead ringer for Di, and plays her in all the unraveling horror of Steven Knight’s exquisite script. She harnesses the Princess’ mannerisms, and the breathlessness that makes her words sound as if her lungs were pushed to exhaustion in order to finish every sentence. Her facial expressions and head-swings alone are a masterclass in what I can only describe as understated overacting. Yet for all that effort something tells me her Lady Di will be the “lady in waiting” when Oscar nominations are announced Feb 8. I will be happy to be wrong, as she has shown over and over she has more talent than given credit for.

Some sure-fire standouts for nominations in addition to the writing:
• A musical score that sets a layered and somber mood.
• Cinematography and Editing whose combined pacing builds and locks the cage closing in on their heroin.

Yet in the end, the sum of all these parts still feels oddly one-note.

For me, perhaps the bigger “AHA” moment after seeing Diana fight tradition at every turn was that, the biggest and ultimately fatal mistake she made was daring to battle the dogma that “predestined immortals” are not allowed a life before death…..

A solid B.