My Spencer Review
I should start off by saying that I'm hugely disappointed after watching my most highly anticipated movie of the year. Why do I say this? Because Kristen Stewart was not in Spencer. Or perhaps she disappeared into the role and became completely unrecognizable, morphing into Diana, so much so that even an avid fan such as yours truly could not find my beloved actress in any of the scenes. Vanished in the sense that there was no visible trace of Bella Swan whatsoever or any of the characters she played throughout the years for that matter. Even her Guernica tattoo was no longer on her forearm. What a pity as Kristen would have been perfectly cast and right at home in a film that showcased a European arthouse aesthetic, just as Clouds of Sils Maria and Personal Shopper were tailor made for her.
The actress who portrayed Princess Diana in Spencer churned out career defining performance and is deserving of all the critical acclaim and accolades she will be receiving. On a superficial level she embodied Diana's mannerisms, accent, and hair--down to the way she batted her eyelashes. Of course, this actor's layered performance was much more than that--exhibiting the most credible range of any actress I've seen so far this year--going from acting out the carefree happy-go-lucky archetype in the opening scene to tearful self-pity through much of the second act, to fierce self-assertion and fearless independence in the final act.
With someone of the stature of Princess Diana, there exists a fine line between exhibiting confidence and being arrogant--the lesser actor would project arrogance and a false sense of confidence. Of course the actor who portrayed Diana was much more than confident--she carried herself with grace, elegance, poise and sophistication. She embodied these qualities with such credibility that she did not appear at all to be merely pretending to be someone she wasn't. For this reason I can say she became Diana, thus making it an Oscar-worthy performance.
While this was supposedly a fantasy biopic, it was as eerie and creepy as any horror film I've watched in recent memory sans the gore. The Princess was portrayed as living vicariously as the ghost of the martyred Anne Boleyn, with her fractured emotional state, visiting her childhood home which appears to be haunted and its hauntingly beautiful cinematography which gave this film its hypnotic ambience, eliciting Kubrickian undertones.
Admittedly, I thought I would have a difficult time empathizing with an immensely wealthy, popular and powerful woman, with a large staff of servants who caters to her every fancy and whim, reminiscent of Downton Abbey, complaining about living in a "gilded cage" when she has no idea what it's like to face skid-row poverty, brought upon countless Anglo-Americans during the new gilded age.
But even here, this actress manages to pull it off--convincing me to identify with her plight of being a wallflower in a grandiose, larger than life setting, always having to put on a facade to please the royal family, putting their interests above her own--she is oft reminded that no one is above tradition--along with her increasingly strained relationship due to infidelity on the part of her husband Prince Charles. Her sole purpose in life, her very existence, was to always present an artificial persona "for the crown", when she longed for her childhood and normalcy, which was evidenced by the fact that she gave it all up in the end--as Diana realized even a palace can be a prison--to live a relatively normal life.
This film wasn't a portrait of the Diana the people's princess anywhere as much as it was a case study of her demise, mental breakdown and fractured mind, whereby she is depicted as being physically, mentally and emotionally lost, driving her to among other things, self-mutilation, anorexia and bulimia--which no one in their right frame of mind would envy. So we the audience can share her loss and pain.
This is a great example of a film where the lead character transcends the plot, where her commanding and mesmerizing depiction of the Princess of Wales was all that really seems to matter in this film. This actress pours her mind, body and soul into a role that leaves her raw and exposed. You know it by the way she holds her gaze, which is not only deliberate and intense but reveals much about how and what she was feeling, emoting her happiness, vulnerability, tenderness, frailty and ferocity.
Also noteworthy was her undeniable chemistry with her onscreen sons Prince William and Prince Harry--the scenes they shared were the most endearing and sentimental. And lastly her screen presence which carried the film on her shoulders as the camera was closely focused on her during all the important scenes. If the actress who magnificently portrayed Princess Diana in Spencer doesn't bring home a golden statuette, it will probably be the biggest Academy Awards snub of the 2021 awards season.