Review originally published on 09.10.21 at the Toronto International Film Festival
“Spencer” is meant as a surreal, almost nightmarish, statement on Princess Diana‘s anguish over being a royal. If you’re already familiar with the Princess of Wales’ story, then you already know she had a loveless marriage to Prince Charles. In 1992, they would eventually separate and four years later divorce.
Set during a 1991 Christmas celebration at Queen Elizabeth’s Sandringham estate, “Spencer” is a chamber piece meant to make the viewer feel the claustrophobia Diana endured being suffocated by the Royal family. By all accounts, the story being told here is fiction, so either you hop along with Larrain’s fantasy or you don’t.
Playing Diana is Kristen Stewart, in a finely attuned performance that at times veers towards sketch, yes, being a royal is a pain, but the lengths at which Larrain/Stewart go to make you feel that pain turn the whole thing into eerie caricature. Larrain’s film is pure camp, filled with overtly foggy outdoors, Diana clutching mercilessly at her pearls, and the ghost of Anna Boleyn haunting her dreams. It’s all pure fantasy porn, absolutely defiant of reality with no subtlety whatsoever.
Stewart’s Diana is portrayed as a total lunatic. She feels stuck and victimized, but is part of the most white-privileged of circumstances. You have no sympathy for her whatsoever. You just wish she could go see a therapist or get proper medication. The troubling behaviour she displays doesn’t necessarily come with consolation — you don’t feel pity for her plight, but just annoyance.
The inner demons Diana must have felt are rendered here in such skittish ways that there is absolutely no room for nuance. Claire Mathon’s beautiful photography does enhance the cinematic aspect of the whole thing, but Larrain, who fared much better in “Jackie,” delivers an empty statement with elusiveness in its contours. [C]
Of course, we all know the rule: take these reactions with a grain of salt rather than treating them as gospel. Still, I will say that the film tested like gangbusters earlier this year, and Lionsgate clearly has confidence.