Starring: Kirsten Stewart, Timothy Spall, Jack Farthing, Sean Harris, Sally Hawkins
*SPOILERS BELOW*
🍿 Director Pablo Larrain’s ‘Spencer’ is a portrait into Princess Diana psyche and her disintegrated relationship with the Royal Family. Set over three days during the Christmas holidays in 1991, the film explores a glimpse of Princess Diana’s life with intimacy and tenderness. She’s played to perfection by Kirsten Stewart who has described the film as “a three-day meditation, fever dream–poem”, which is accurate, given the film looks like this:
🍿 The film opens as Diana gets lost in the English country side heading towards Sandringham, Queen Elizabeth II’s country estate for Christmas with the Royal Family (which sounds frankly terrifying).
The film feels like a psychological horror where Diana is trapped both in mind and body. She’s expected to be a certain way and act a certain way, all under the suffocating eye of Equerry Major Alistair Gregory (Timothy Spall). She’s got outfits picked out for her, (Christmas Day Lunch, Boxing Day Dinner, Departure etc), her curtains are wired shut, and she’s not allowed to explore the grounds, which makes every act of Diana’s defiance so satisfying.
🍿 ‘Spencer’ continues the theme of rich, beautiful people being sad in beautiful places. While Diana essentially is outcast by the Royal Family, it’s her friendship with Maggie (Sally Hawkins), her dresser, who is the narrative centre of the story. It’s only in this friendship and while she’s with her sons Prince Harry and Prince William where she’s truly at ease.
🍿 Kirsten Stewart’s Diana has a longing innocence and a kind of tender wholesomeness that’s crushed by the institution that is the Royal Family. Sandringham estate feels kinda like a house of horrors, and I’m sure it is definitely one when you’re forced to have all your meals with an apathetic, cold, and crabby Prince Charles: (I would eat my pearls too)
The film is rich with feeling, and the format in which it’s shot serves to add to Diana’s feelings of claustrophobia and the dream like state she finds herself in.
In the end the Princess just wants a friend and someone to basically ask her if she’s okay, which is what everyone wants deep down! The ending is the most relatable part of the film - Princess Diana rescues her sons from pheasant shooting and drives them to KFC (The Princess in RL reportedly took her sons to McDonald’s), but either one is pretty okay in my books.
‘Spencer’ is an exceptional portrait of a rebel and a role Kirsten Stewart embodies and nails in every scene. A must watch.
Four country estates out of five.
And most importantly:
🐶 Are there dogs in the film? Yes
🎄☃️ Is it set at Christmas? Yes
Thanks so much for reading!
Warmest virtual hugs
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