Review 623: Spencer

 

Spencer is a lavishly crafted, haunting, historical, psychological drama and a riveting character study  by a bravura performance by Kristen Stewart. 

In December 1991, the marriage of Princess Diana (Kristen Stewart) and Prince Charles (Jack Farthing) 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 prominent theme in the film seems to be the Weaponisation of food.

Director Pablo Larraín’s direction is  Scenes are constructed from wide shots and steady pans, lending to great sense of pacing and world building the score by Jonny Greenwood is lovely and haunting and sounds like a string corset going to hell to quote Mark Kermode. The cinematography is beautiful and captures the elegance of the English countryside at Christmas 1991. The production design is exquisite, the costumes are lavish, 

Kristen Stewart delivers a tortured, mesmirising performance as Princess Diana. Brilliantly conveying her as a multifaceted and complicated woman. She’s been put in a position where her agency has been taken from her.

Jack Fathering

Sean Harris

Timothy Spall

Sally Hawkins

4.5/5.

The Anonymous Critic.