Spencer – Movie Review
116 Minutes, Rated R
Written by Stephen Knight
Directed by Pablo Larraín
Synopsis:
The marriage of Princess Diana and Prince Charles has long since grown cold. Though rumors of affairs and a divorce abound, peace is ordained for the Christmas festivities at the Queen’s Sandringham Estate.
There’s eating and drinking, shooting and hunting. Diana knows the game. But this year, things will be profoundly different. Spencer is an imagining of what might have happened during those few fateful days.
“A fable from a true tragedy.”
The world–and especially the United States–has a fascination bordering on mania when it comes to England’s Royal Family.
And when Diana Spencer hit the scene as the new Princess of Wales in 1981, well, it was like nothing the world had ever witnessed: an event–a positive event, no less–broadcast on a global scale.
It was, for all intents and purposes, the fairy tale everyone wanted it to be.
But nothing lasts forever, and neither did this, ending in–a very public and messy–divorce in 1996.
But the public couldn’t divorce themselves from their Princess, and the connection to her–and her carefully crafted yet strangely genuine persona–was cemented by her tragic and untimely death just a year later, in 1997.
While only the royals themselves can ever fully know what went on behind closed doors, and Diana’s own perceptions and actions are now lost to eternity, Steven Knight’s script supposes to fill in some blanks with what might have occurred over that fateful Christmas holiday of 1991, when choices were made and futures decided.
Pablo Larraín directs us, then, through the mythical tale of the disintegrating fairy tale that so captivated the world.
Kristen Stewart is given the unenviable–yet possibly career-defining–opportunity to portray Diana, or at least a version of her, in the face of worldwide scrutiny (a task performed by many actresses before, but never in a project as unique as this one). Bold choice.
Listen as special guest Valerie Cameron from the Movies That Make Us podcast and I discuss the already-garnering-awards-talk film Spencer.
Spencer has appeared at the Venice, Telluride, and Toronto International Film Festivals, and will hit theaters this Friday, November 5.
Spencer stars Kristen Stewart, Timothy Spall, Jack Nielen, Freddie Spry, Jack Farthing, Sean Harris, Stella Gonet, Richard Sammel, Sally Hawkins, and Amy Mason.
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