Film review: ‘SPENCER’, by Nick Gardener from ‘Built For Speed’
Dramatisations of the life of Princess Diana have usually been misfires, the most notorious being the 2013 film Diana which, despite the star power of lead Naomi Watts, wound up as a fluffy costume drama and borderline turkey. Pablo Larrain’s Spencer, however, is a very different take on Diana’s story and while limited in scope, it’s a much more impressive piece of cinema.
Recalling Gosford Park and Jean Renoir’s The Rules of the Game, Spencer, which is captioned as a ‘fiction based on a true tragedy’, focuses on Diana’s near-breakdown during the royal family’s Christmas at the Sandringham Estate in 1991. Recoiling from demands that she comply with royal household rules and stung by growing rumours of Charles’ affair with Camilla, Diana cuts a lonely figure amid the outrageous opulence and museum-like lifelessness of the estate.
While ostensibly a biopic of a 20th century icon, the film is really about a free spirit forced to conform to a stultifying and anachronistic world built on media friendly appearances and antiquated, near-militaristic protocol. It’s also about someone desperately trying to regain an identity that has been snatched from them in the name of queen and country. Diana’s now-abandoned childhood home sits tantalisingly within view of the Sandringham estate and constantly tempts her to flee the Windsor’s compound. The film is in no way subtle in its suggestion she was a prisoner of this world, at one point she even escapes the grounds using wire cutters.
As Diana, Kristen Stewart delivers a fine performance. She goes beyond impersonation to inhabit the character and create a convincing, multi-dimensional person. She infuses Diana with unnerving brittleness but also a bracing rebelliousness and touching warmth when she’s with William and Harry. While she plays up Diana’s increasingly fragile mental state a little too much (she even hallucinates at one point) Stewart never descends into histrionics.
Sally Hawkins is typically excellent playing Diana’s lady-in-waiting and loyal confidante, Maggie and the film would have benefitted from her having a bigger role. Timothy spall is also terrific as the ex-army head of the Sandringham Estate who has been assigned to keep Diana in line. His foreboding visage and probing gaze, which seems to greet Diana around every corner, is appropriately menacing. The other royals, particularly Charles (Jack Farthing) and the Queen (Stella Gonet) seem a little monotone and monolithic but it could be argued that this is appropriate given Diana’s perspective.
Spencer is a more impressive looking effort than Larrain’s studio-bound biopic of Jackie Kennedy. Despite giving the film a gauzy texture that recalls the look of British tv shows from the early 80’s, Larrain and cinematographer Claire Mathon conjure striking vistas of the Sandringham Estate’s sprawling grounds. They also create a sense of threat with the camera chasing Diana as she frantically tries to negotiate Sandringham’s imposing labyrinthine corridors in scenes that, at times recall the tracking shots in The Shining. The ubiquitous Jonny Greenwood’s ominous score also creates a sense of looming threat.
A few stumbles aside, such as Larrain clumsily attempting to parallel Diana’s situation with Anne Boleyn’s, Spencer is a taut and engrossing examination of a universally known but still intriguing figure.
Nick’s rating: ***1/2.
Genre: Biopic/ drama.
Classification: M.
Director(s): Pablo Larrain.
Release date: 20th Jan 2022.
Running time: 117 mins.
Reviewer: Nick Gardener can be heard on “Built For Speed” every Friday night from 8-10pm right here on 88.3 Southern FM. Nick can also be heard on “The Good, The Bad, The Ugly Film Show” podcast. http://subcultureentertainment.com/2014/02/the-good-the-bad-the-ugly-film-show