Spencer Movie Review: Kristen Stewart Shines With an Oscar-Worthy Performance in Pablo Larraín’s New
Star Cast: Kristen Stewart, Timothy Spall, Jack Farthing, Stella Gonet, Sally Hawkins and ensemble.
Director: Pablo Larraín
Ratings: 4.5/5 (four and half star) [yasr_overall_rating size=”large”]
Let’s open our Spencer review recalling the perennial sense of oppression that invades the whole new film by Pablo Larraìn. We had guessed it by looking at the splendid poster, in which the Princess of Wales hides herself, denies herself to our eyes, as in a motion of rejection. A stomach cramp also felt by Larràin, perhaps nauseated by all the media overexposure that did not spare Lady Diana even when she was dead. This is why Spencer allows himself the luxury of taking so many things for granted. The public knows everything, it knows too much, and there is no need to retrace the steps of a life that has been wrinkled for years. So Larraìn focuses on a decisive weekend. Only three days in which Lady Diana (or rather Diana Spencer) fights a psychological battle of his own, suspended between discouragement and vital impulses. Set between Christmas Eve and boxing day (Boxing Day), Spencer portrays Diana with love, passion and respect. And it sanctions the painful rebirth of a sad princess with a Golden Lion film.
Spencer Movie Review: Story
Spencer takes us to a very specific moment in the life of the Princess of Wales: a Christmas in the early 90s in which it was revealed that the marriage of Lady Di and Prince Charles could never work. His parallel relationship (and nothing hidden) with Camilla Parker Bowles had already dynamited any illusion after the wedding and she carried a heavy load of unease, jealousy and sadness for having felt used to conceive descendants that would ensure the line of succession and having seen the succession truncated. possibility of being happy within the royal family.
Despite being in the ideal position to one day be Queen of England, Diana was desperately seeking to establish her identity, trying to return to her family’s estate that was in the vicinity of the Sandringham estate in Norfolk of the Windsor House and above all, avoid any encounter with the royal family, which he considered stagnant in the past. During the three days of the weekend in which Christmas is celebrated, Diana feels completely trapped and captive, which leads her to have an erratic and self-destructive behavior and to star in a series of heartbreaking disagreements.
A gradual process, which starts from the discomfort of the oppressed princess and then abandons her to make room for the daughter who is no longer, for the wife who cannot be, for the mother she would like to become. All told through hard-earned glimpses of normality and highly credible visionary sequences. Immersed in a glossy nightmare (enhanced by the pasty texture of the film), Spencer is full of destabilizing scenes, in which the imaginative power of cinema shakes and draws great allegories without ever falling into rhetoric, blackmail and voyeur temptations.
The Review and Analysis
That leads to anguish being a dominant feeling throughout the film, finding little oases of truth only during her scenes with an inspired Sally Hawkins and those she shares with the young actors who bring her children to life. I will not say that we see her flourish there, but I will say that she can be herself in a world that annuls and subdues her without her being able to do much. You may do it in the first place, but sooner or later someone will find out that you are not doing what you are required to do, even if it is simply the dress to wear at the time.
Of course ‘Spencer’ is committed to enclosing her in herself every time , something that finds a perfect reflection in the interpretation of Stewart, who transforms into Diana at all levels and shines by transmitting that gradual emotional sinking with impeccable precision. The thought crossed my mind that she was the last remaining indigenous plant in a place taken over by an invasive species. It does not matter how resistant you show, you will cease to exist to be the same as there is around you.
The unexpected arrival of an almost paranoid element partially alters the energy that ‘Spencer’ gives off, being then when those excesses of the script to which he alluded before gain more presence, raising the question of whether she will completely lose herself or not. The answer is clear by relying on a true story without wanting to make a Tarantino, but both Larraín and Stewart know very well what tricks to play to make that lose relevance. Perhaps the chosen resolution does shock some, but it is still another way to enhance one last time that game of contrasts that I mentioned before.
The Last Words
Spencer is a wonderful film that perfectly captures the feeling of anguish of its protagonist when being subjected to a way of life in which it is not recognized. Here Stewart offers an Oscar-worthy performance, while Larraín once again confirms his talent for tackling these kinds of stories with a work superior to the acclaimed ‘Jackie’ in my opinion.
