5/5
Pablo Larraín’s Spencer is a gorgeous and lush film, haunted by a past that’s always threatening to encroach on the present – and often does just that. This is a film filled with impeccable performances working with an astonishing script – no moment in the film is wasted and every performer (especially Kristen Stewart) is doing some of their best work. Seemingly innocuous lines of dialogue can have multiple meanings based on the performer’s reading, a polite menace hangs in the air behind forced pleasantries, and Stewart effortlessly conveys the sensation of being trapped and crushed by centuries of tradition – her hushed whisper, the quiet desperation in each attempt to connect or break free. Larraín fills the frame with stunning images – haunted mist rising over the grounds at night, elegant gowns become suffocating cages, curtains thrown open bathe Diana in a soft, comforting light. And the score is exquisite – it anchors us in a classical past while using discordant motifs to convey Diana’s discomfort and heighten our sense of tension at her ever-increasing loss of freedom. At every turn, Diana’s agency has been taken from her, her personhood robbed by the institution she has married into, and this film is a poetic exploration of the ways her freedom was curtailed and her struggles to break free. It’s an outstanding work.
