Review: For all its artful presentation, "Spencer" is a misfire
Saturday, November 6, 2021 at 5:02PM by Nathaniel R
A woman driving alone stops at a diner along the road to ask directions. She’s lost which is as common a problem as it gets. In any usual circumstance this would go unnoticed by other patrons but this is not a usual circumstance and this woman is far from common, and no Commoner at that. The whole room stops to gawk at her. This clever gambit early in Spencer sets Princess Diana (Kristen Stewart) immediately apart from humanity. A elegant but sterile aerial shot from the gifted cinematographer Claire Mathon (Portrait of a Lady on Fire) futher isolates her when she reaches that destination. She’s just a tiny figure about to be swallowed up in an imposing estate (Sandringham House, to be exact).
While the opening scenes of Spencer are promising and mobile, and the craft of the filmmaking as rich as you’d expect from the Chilean master Pablo Larraín, Spencer stops abruptly in its tracks at the estate...
Oh sure the camera still glides beautifully and Diana spins out or races about within the confines of the frame, but we are now frozen in place alongside this woman who would rather be anywhere else. The movie will take place over a single weekend and though the conflict is a doozy, and all stories need those, there’s no story but the conflict and hanging question; Will she stay or will she go?
If you’ll allow an overused metaphor — and you should since this movie shamelessly loves the big visual metaphors... I can’t with the scarecrow! — Diana is a bird in a cage. Or, rather, though I’m not sure the movie wholly acknowledges this, a not always fragile bird who willingly flies into a giant gilded atrium, causes all sorts of chaos in the flight patterns therein and constantly chirps about the unlocked cage she’s flown into.
Princess Diana has always been the kind of woman that was more of an idea to people than another actual human being. To its credit Spencer knows this — and bluntly discusses it— but the movie also falls into the same trap. It has a few ideas about Diana (not all of them flattering) but purposefully removes her from reality placing her in “a fable”. This Diana is not a person at all but a Performance of a Storybook Character. The movie them is just a famous woman that people love to project onto playing another famous woman that people aggressively projected onto during her life. (Good meta-casting - we wholly admit that). The talented Kristen Stewart (see Clouds of Sils Maria, Personal Shopper) is winning ecstatic praise for this star turn (and probably some trophies) so my personal devastating Spencer tragedy is that I cannot join the chorus of hosannas. That sounds self-absorbed on purpose; the movie invites the construction of mountains from molehills.
Stewart deploys her own familiar but fascinating physical discomfort with stardom into the role quite well, but her voice-work drove me mad. It’s so self-conscious and whisper-breathy that it's as if Stewart is playing an idea of how Nicole Kidman might have played Princess Diana while simultaneously trying on an accent for size. Stewart’s committed but ultimately one-note performance (she starts the movie peeved, paranoid, and deeply unhappy and mostly stays that way throughout) further amps up the self-pitying hysteria of the POV filmmaking — sort of but not exclusively Diana’s perspectiv. As a result the movie teeters on the edge of camp throughout and sometimes falls right in like a pearl necklace into soup.
And those poor servants!
We spend very little time with Spencer's vaguely considered antagonists, the Royal Family, and much more with the servants who Diana treats very badly. I freely admit that my sympathies were not with the Princess. Perhaps it was my own years in the hospitality business but I couldn’t help but think about how much extra work for no extra money each and every employee she encountered would have had to do to clean up her messes or smooth things over. And some of them would surely get fired in these scenarios, too, caught between conflicting orders from the moneyed aristocracy whose salaries they are actually pay in taxes and what they earn from those people. Of the servants only Timothy Spall (in charge of the estate), the chef (Sean Harris) and Diana's favourite (Sally Hawkins) are given personalities which is surely the point given our skewered point of view and how closely we cling to Diana.
About this difficult distraction of the servants. One scene in particular inside a food pantry was so cringe-inducing I could barely watch, a psychological horror movie inside a costume drama. I kept thinking of all the man hours of the workers gone to waste and then the extra hours for the person who would have to clean up Diana's mess.
The movies riskiest gambit is its tonal shift of an ending, the most obvious way in which the movie earns its “fable” billing in the screenplay by Steven Knight (who also, not coincidentally, wrote the camp classic Serenity, 2019). But the shift, whether or not we are meant to take it at face value or as a mental proposition from a troubled woman is unearned and crudely prompted (poor Sally!). The finale is so broadly realized and performed that I stifled a laugh. Perhaps this disconnect between the film proper and the ending is the point but… really?
In short, Spencer didn’t work for me but instead often repelled me. That's a surprise since I often admire Larrain’s thorny uncomfortable movies about prickly, damaged, isolated people (Jackie, Ema, and The Club among them... though Tony Manero, even more than Spencer, turns me all the way off).
Still, credit where it's due. It's a handsome film and ultimately thought-provoking even if the audience is doing a lot of the work for the movie, contrasting this new... object? evidence? ...with their 'partial view' memories of the real thing. Spencer's strongest element is a brilliantly sympathetic side-dish movie that is solely about Diana's eating disorder. All these words and only now we mention the plentiful shots of food! The displays look rich and delicious but so paralyzingly perfect that they’re surely poisonous. Just like Diana's ultra regimented perpetually-surveilled existence. As a movie about Princess Diana, though, Spencer is self-absorbed and monotonous, like a parody of an great art film rather than the real deal. C
Reader Comments (19)
Even though I had a nearly diametrically opposite reaction, it was still fascinating to read your thoughts on the film. It's interesting how you found the first scenes so promising while, for me, that restaurant tidbit was maybe the picture's least successful scene - something that works intellectually but didn't gel with the rest of it.
I have to say that, while I loved the movie and Stewart in it, I came out of it doubting her Best Actress frontrunner status. The work feels a bit too abrasive and unlikeable for Oscar. Furthermore, the fractious tension between miscast actor and stilted role is very much up my alley. However, it's also the kind of thing I imagine will be a hard sell for the impersonation fanatics that tend to take these biopic perfs to Oscar gold.
Considering your negative reaction and the nature of the performance, do you still think she's a strong contender for the win, as many other prognosticators continue to say?
I have yet to see it, but I'm genuinely fascinated by how this movie is dividing people. Hopefully I'll find more to love in it whenever I get around to it, but I appreciate the way you expressed your misgivings. This is the first reaction I've read that touches on the way she treats her employees/servants.
I actually have not enjoyed Larrain's last few previous films, but I loved this one. I'm afraid it's going to be a long season where you will grow tired of hearing the praise for this. I've been there. I'm not 100% sold that she's winning Actress, though - it is much more surreal than what they might typically pick.
I did not dislike it as much as you did (the magnificent score, the production design, the costumes all earned a lot of bonus points from me), but I did think it was dreary and overlong for what it was. I've never really understood why people were so fascinated with Diana, apart from her horrible death, and this movie did not answer that question. Stewart has been better elsewhere and I have to doubt she can win for less than a career-best performance in such a tonally odd film.
FWIW, I think Jackie is a masterpiece, so I was really looking forward to this one.
I'm with Cláudio and eurocheese on this one, and as much I enjoyed Stewart's work I don't see her winning for this, mainly because I think there at least two candidates yet to be revealed who will leave both her and Chastain in the dust. It's early days.
Tony Manero is my favorite film of Larrain's, so I wonder if that'll translate into liking this one.
So...a costume design nod for Durran is it for the Oscars then, eh?
So...a costume design nod for Durran is it for the Oscars then, eh?
This is a very scathing review but i'm quite pleased your not falling in line behind the Stewart juggernaut,I was concerned just from clips that she was going to be using that flutttery voice and your review seemed to confirm it.
I loved Jackie and thought Portman was sensational and should have won with no Bening in the line up,I only liked Negga and Natalie from the Oscar five.
Apparently he is doing one more of these female enclosed space dramas.
Nathaniel, you're definitely not alone - the AV Club also panned the film and Stewart's performance, and found the ending risible.
I'm now curious enough that I'll have to judge for myself, I guess. I did like JACKIE even if I found it a bit cold. As for this one, I have a feeling every viewer's reaction will be inevitably at least a bit pre-cooked by their attitude towards Princess Di. Mine is pretty much neutral - yes, everyone's way too obsessed with her (and the royal family generally) and she wasn't really a "victim" in the usual sense, but it's hard not to have at least some sympathy for her situation - especially given how young and inexperienced she was when she entered the gilded cage.
Nathaniel, everything you wrote is spot-on. I saw this last night and it was truly painful to sit through. Major problems abound. Monotony in the writing. A biopic that does not illuminate its subject. A victim for which there is no sympathy.
Stewart is very good, but this movie is dreadful. It is not offensively bad, just extremely boring and pointless.
Spencer does have a theme though: Diana gets sad wearing pretty clothes.
One bright spot--Chastain now has a leg up in the Oscar race.
Yes - thank you for this review! I agree with so much here. I did like Kristen's performance, but was mixed on the film. I'm honestly not surprised - I didn't like Jackie either and Neruda is the only Pablo Larrain film that has worked for me. The magical realist angst for this and Jackie works as an aesthetic but not as storytelling.
@ Lynn Lee
I don't know about that. I'm neutral on Di and loved the film. I think reactions are more Larrain and/or Stewart based. Both acquired tastes, for sure.
I have not seen it but the whispery breathy Nicole Kidman voice analogy is enough to turn me off. She has deployed more and more of that in her recent outings like Nine Perfect Strangers so much so I have to stop watching the show altogether. So if Spencer is going to be like that for two hours, thanks but no thanks. I love this review, a refreshing departure from all the rest I've read.
Loved Hawkins, Spall and the look and feel but it still isn't half as riveting as JACKIE. Torn on Stewart - I think she has some nice moments, especially opposite the two child actors, but she's never quite convincing. If she wins the Oscar, it's a testament to this not being the most spectacular of Best Actress fields.
Andrew--for me, the only time the movie comes alive are the scenes with the kids. Stewart has a great rapport with these two young actors, who are really good. The rest of the film is a museum piece--something under glass, frozen, beautiful but cold, icy and inert.
So many of the things you disliked about it are things I liked - I think the veering into camp and melodrama are very much on purpose, and I think we're supposed to be thinking about the put-upon servants throughout, and not liking Di's behavior because of it. It's constantly implied she's getting these poor people in trouble by the film.
There's a moment where she's playing with her kids and one of them asks her if she's paid for being a princess and I feel as if the film pauses and lingers there with a deafening silence -- of course she doesn't think so, and her boys don't think so, but the film knows she is. That point gets raised time and time and time again in her interactions with the staff.
Having just recently hated Larrain's film Ema on a first watch and then loved it on a second I guess I'm more in the tank for his complicated and harsh main characters than I used to be - Spencer, I thought, leans hard into all of Di's worst and most self-destructive and selfish attributes in ways I thought soared and surprised me. I did not expect this movie at all.
Claudio, I just saw Spencer and while a nomination for Stewart is virtually assured I would be surprised if she won. The audience I was with HATED the film. I thought Stewart was very good but not Oscar worthy.
I have Chastain winning right now but waiting for the reactions to the performances of Gaga, Kidman, Bullock, Berry, and Haim.