Director Pablo Larrain’s new film Spencer is a fictionalized account of the events that lead to Diana (Kristen Stewart), Princess of Wales, deciding to end her marriage to Prince Charles (Jack Farthing) and it’s genuinely one of the year’s most haunting horrors.
Spencer’s visual landscape constantly catches your eye in a way that makes you feel transported back to the late ’90s era of British royalty. The far away, secluded manor that the royal family spends their Christmases at has a lavish, maze-like interior and a beautifully vast exterior that you can’t help but marvel at. The costume design by Jacqueline Durran especially evokes this era well, with plenty of dresses and outfits iconic to Diana. Purely visually, Spencer looks like a simple dive into a well-known era of British royalty, but the mix of Larrain’s direction and Claire Mathon’s cinematography put an entirely different spin on things that makes it something more.
Although the interior and exterior have this vast beauty, the emptiness of it all makes this royal palace feel more the Overlook Hotel. Honestly, Spencer gives off a lot of Shining vibes. The cinematography has a paler, grainier look that’s very akin Kubrick’s classic Stephen King adaptation. Even as Lorrain captures Diana traversing the massive yet seemingly tight-fitted halls of the estate, it can feel like she’s being followed or watched, making Spencer an overall unsettling experience. Larrain really brings all the right pieces together, down to the eerie haunting fog seen almost every time Diana heads outside, to create a masterful psychological horror experience that touches on its titular figure’s very real trauma.
Stardom always comes at a price as everyone, whether they should or shouldn’t, injects themselves into the lives of those in the spotlight, stripping away their privacy and identity or forcing them to face constant judgement. There will always be a price to pay for stardom, but Spencer questions whether forcefully maintaining traditions and image play their own role in turning stardom into psychological torture.
Right from her arrival at the manor, Diana’s sense of fear and discomfort is palpable as she’s trapped within the royal family’s traditions. Just by arriving on her own rather than with Prince Charles and their children, Diana is instantly viewed as a liability more than a family member. As she struggles to “play ball” with the forced traditions instilled by the Queen (Stella Gonet) and the legacy of British royalty, you can feel it slowly tear apart Diana from the inside as people within the royal estate look down on her. If she refuses royal traditions, doesn’t stick to her strict dress code, and/or isn’t diligent with her schedule, she’s seen as a grave disappoint and treated like a leper. As she earns more and more ire from the royal family, you can really feel the walls close in on her and you even begin to question whether she’s being driven to madness by those around her.
Outside of her children and close confidant Maggie (Sally Hawkins), Diana is on her own as everyone else, including Charles, embodies the persistence of this system of conforming to tradition. Any sense of support she could possibly seek tells her to fall in line and it certainly doesn’t help that she’s essentially stalked by the estate’s head of staff, Major Alistair Gregory, who’s made a haunting force by Timothy Spall, to keep her pressured into fitting the Queen’s ideals. Spencer is slow-growing claustrophobia at every turn and the way that Larrain and writer Steven Knight bring in elements of Diana’s past that have been boarded up by the Queen as well the story of Anne Boleyn (Amy Manson) work incredibly well in giving Diana’s story here some historic and personal authenticity and emotional weight.
At the center of this gripping and horrifying psychological tragedy is Stewart, giving an engaging and connective performance. Like her fellow Twilight alum Robert Pattison, Stewart is never really given the credit she deserves for her performances and has struggled to be seen as something more than Bella Swan, but her performance here will open many eyes in seeing her as a bona fide acting force. Given the excellent balance Stewart brings in making Diana’s soul and identity deteriorating absolutely gut-wrenching while also attempting to maintain herself for her children, it’s no wonder that her captivating performance in Spencer is in top conversation for Oscar glory. It’s an engaging and relatable performance that ties all the things that attempt to weaken and destroy Diana together incredibly well to create a gripping portrayal of psychological trauma.
Spencer is the breakout film of the year. Its genre-bending tragedy of historical systemic trauma centered around an iconic figure of British royalty sees Stewart thrive in a career-defining performance. As the awards race continues to run, Spencer and specifically Stewart will continually maintain a lead.
