The Movie Room

Spencer 2021, directed by Pablo Larraín

Rating: 8/10

Like The Lion in Winter, Spencer shows the special kind of torture that comes with spending your Christmas with the British Royal Family as Princess Diana tries to survive the formalities and traditions while keeping her sense of self intact. This movie is far from perfect, but it still has many merits.

As part of Pablo Larraín’s trilogy of great women, this one works the least well, especially as a biopic. Jackie and Mariaalso focus on a specific moment in time for their titular women, but Spencer gives Diana much less depth than Jackie Kennedy or Maria Callas in their films. Kristen Stewart is really good in this movie, but her performance never really reads as Princess Diana (though I could be wrong on that, as she was before my time)—it is similar to many Marilyn Monroe movies where the public persona and the actual person get mixed up too much. And that is part of the point of the movie that she is trying to recover herself and get out from the persona the palace is trying to make her fit into, but it doesn’t land as well when we don’t really get to see the real Diana, except that she likes fast food. This is due to the script I think—Jackie had the tightest script in the trilogy and really gets down into what her mind works like, while Maria’s drug-induced hallucinations are a bit on the nose but also really help you understand who she is and what she wants. Diana, meanwhile, looks gorgeous while being sad and we see her run around the palace a lot and it’s all very pretty but I found it too surface level.

Still, that surface is gorgeous and while I don’t think it is always successful, I do think it is occasionally so. There are a lot of mirror shots which is a classic trick that I always love due to my love of old Douglas Sirk movies. There is a great sequence where she goes to her old family estate which is next door and it feels like a ghost town, and it is here that the audience comes closest to seeing who she is, as it becomes clear that one estate represents her past (shuttered up, gathering dust, abandoned) while her present (gilded, mirrored, sophisticated, all to a fault). And there is of course my favorite shot from any film released in 2021: when Queen Elizabeth arrives and there is a separate car carrying all her corgis, who march out of the car with such purpose. Beyond just them being cute dogs, it also shows how well treated and respected the dogs are and how at home they feel here, while Diana, a human being, is not granted the same dignity. 

Spencer may not be as great as Jackie or even Maria, but it is still a visual feast and Kristen Stewart is great, even though she isn’t totally convincing. Overall, it is a film with a lot of panache and something to say, but that something to say just isn’t quite as deep as I would like it to be.