Kristen Stewart as Princess Diana – “Spencer” in the movies – Culture

In the end, the film becomes almost outrageously free and happy, and a happy praise of the fast food, the hamburger. A mood of optimism, a mother and her two boys are on their way to a new life, Diana, Princess of Wales, married to the British heir to the throne Charles. Everything suddenly seems very simple all I need is a miracle. That feels good, after two agonizing hours of claustrophobia, with long rituals and exquisite dishes, through which the Chilean director Pablo Larraín chases his heroine, who is deadly unhappy with the role she is supposed to play at court, under the regiment of Queen Elizabeth II. Not least because Charles openly betrays her with another woman. You know how a few years after that moment of freedom and happiness the end of Diana, rushed by paparazzi from all over the world, in a car crash in Paris.

In the beginning the military drove up to Sandringham, the Queen’s country residence near Norfolk. The soldiers drag boxes into the palace that are used to transport heavy weapons, cartridges and military equipment. This time there is a lot of food in it, fruits and vegetables and crunchy red lobsters. The discipline of the cooks is also military when they line up in the kitchen to prepare these dishes. December 1991, the royal family celebrates Christmas, three days.

A long family table, lots of servants serving, everything highly ceremonial. A string quartet is playing. It is a desolate ritual because it is entirely by itself, to the exclusion of any public. Paralyzing long shots, the point of view that everything would be aimed at, remains empty, those gathered at the table are the only spectators, the members of the royal family, witnesses and control freaks, with the Queen at their head.

Then there is their supervisor Major Gregory, played by Timothy Spall, who keeps building up in front of everyone like a scarecrow. Both relentlessly control every deviation, every faux pas, every impropriety. The three days over Princess Diana caused an orgy of failures, she knows that and it makes her sick, she will never belong. Will they kill me, she asks with desperate sarcasm because I’m late for tea? A closed circle, no in, but also no out. Royal bullying.

Diana comes too late, over and over again. At first she got lost and couldn’t find Sandringham: I’m lost … And only gradually notices that her parents’ house, where she grew up, is very close to the royal country estate. Their forlornness is part of a self-staging, pathetic and subversive – a postponed, repressed return. She wears a lively red-green jacket, in the palace, on the other hand, all red has disappeared, everything looks green, morbid, moldy – this is also the film by the great set designer Guy Hendrix Dyas. Pablo Larraín is fascinated by families and clans, by their hierarchies, which are refuge and prison and almost naturally generate neuroses and perversities.

The lonely young woman and the big strange house, that was his theme in his previous film “Jackie”, about the murder of John F. Kennedy. You can see his wife Jacqueline, played by Natalie Portman, leading the way through the newly refurbished White House for a TV tour. This is a basic theme of cinema in general, from the nameless heroine in “Rebecca” to the mysterious Delphine Seyrig in “Last Year in Marienbad” by Alain Resnais, a film with endless corridors.

Kristen Stewart likes to play insecure young women, neurosis and masochism

Again and again through corridors and abandoned rooms, Pablo Larraín sends Kristen Stewart as Diana. Stewart likes to play insecure young women, between neurosis and masochism, in which she reflects on her own sexuality and sensitivity, as a superstar in American cinema. In one of her last films she played Jean Seberg, the heroine from Godard’s “Out of Breath”, who was later hounded by the FBI for her political freedom.

Stewart’s portrayal of Diana is backed up by an effortful British accent and dotted with set pieces, iconic poses that are known from the press – the image with a red jacket, black hat, black veil in front of the face is particularly prominent. A bit shy, a bit coquettish, a great mix for the media age, a new form of representation. The picture blurs, again and again, when she shakes her head and lets her blond curls swirl.

In the country estate, Diana seems to be deadlock personified. With her shoulders pressed together, she hurries through the corridors, her body convulsively erect, her eyes wandering uncertainly. There is no future here, she complains, and the past and present are clumped together. At the end she starts dancing again in the corridors, uncontrollably, with childlike exuberance. Their naivete is constructed by men, Larraín and Hendrix Dyas, and Steven Knight, the screenwriter.

Trailer for the film:

Knight has written several family stories, “Eastern Promises”, 2003, for David Cronenberg, the series “Peaky Blinders”, 2013, and “Conspiracy”, 2018, a variation on the Millennium Work by Stieg Larsson, with Claire Foy as Lisbeth Salander – the original title would also fit Diana’s story, “The Girl In the Spider’s Net”. Pure claustrophobia is “No Turning Back”, 2013, directed by Knight himself, with Tom Hardy, a lonely man in his car on a rainy night.

She should put her own life, her own body aside, for the country, for the people, Prince Charles explains rather bluntly to his wife Diana, they are standing at a pool table and he is pushing the black ball towards her. That Diana stole the show from the royal family was a frivolous offense at the time. With the new generation, William, Diana’s son, and Kate, the palace has learned, at Kate’s fortieth elegant portraits were just published – loose hair, red strapless dress of Alexander McQueen, taken by Vogue– Photographer Paolo Roversi. Star Power!

Diana’s paranoia has a historical reference, she sees her fate mirrored in that of Anne Boleyn, one of King Henry VIII’s wives, who was dumped and beheaded when the other found the other. Diana finds a book about Anne in her bedroom. When she later secretly sneaks into her parents’ house – a scarecrow named Bertie has been found – Anne approaches her as an apparition. Go ahead, she advises her. Not much would be missing for salvation, for a happy ending, nothing but a miracle.

Spencer, 2021 – directed by Pablo Larraín. Book: Steven Knight. Camera: Claire Mathon. Editor: Sebastián Sepúlveda. Set design: Guy Hendrix Dyas. Music: Jonny Greenwood. Starring: Kristen Stewart, Jack Farthing, Richard Sammlung, Amy Manson, Sally Hawkins, Sean Harris, Timothy Spall. DCM, 117 minutes. Theatrical release: 01/13/2021