Spencer — Film Review
I’ve seen so many movies released this year and only one other has had as big of an impact on me as Spencer did (Barb & Star Go to Vista Del Mar is a late-night cult classic in the making). I hadn’t even heard of it until a month ago with other autumnal releases such as the likes of ‘Dune’, ‘Last Night in Soho’ and ‘The French Dispatch’ crowding spaces on social media as well as crowding the film dedicated areas in my brain. But it’s been so long since I’ve watched a film that properly stuck in my mind and I don’t even care about the royal family. Maybe it was the haunting genius of Stewart’s performance or maybe it was the anxiety fuelled pastel nightmare painted by Claire Mathon or Jonny Greenwood’s manic yet royally crafted score. I don’t know! Regardless, I loved it so think I’m going to say a bit more about the best film released so far this year if that’s okay?
Let’s start off with Kristen Stewart. Everyone’s aware of the stigma that seems to be attached to this actress after the making of the Twilight series and some of society just hasn’t been able to forget it? I, personally, don’t even think she’s bad in those movies and if you’ve seen Fincher’s ‘Panic Room’ then you know that she’s always been talented. Sure, there are some exceptions where her filmography doesn’t necessarily scream ‘cinema’, but everybody has to have their ‘Zathura: A Space Adventure’, right? In terms of Spencer, I think that Stewart threw herself into the role and did temporarily become Princess Diana. The chemistry she has with the kids who play William and Harry (Jack Nielen and Freddie Spry respectively) feels so completely indestructible and emotionally suffocating and this just furthers the pain you can’t help but feel when you remember Diana’s real fate. There’s a scene where she’s pretending to be a soldier with her two children and it feels heartbreakingly powerful, this woman despite the unimaginably immense and adult pressures she experiences every day is really still a child too. Kristen Stewart conveys this intimacy perfectly; she depicts Diana as someone in a great amount of pain but as someone who tries her hardest to put on an act for her children. In some ways this is admirable but in reality, all it does really to spectators is make them sympathise more because it demonstrates fully the extent of her pain when she fails to hide it from the people she cares about the most. Spencer is Kristen Stewart at her absolute best; the haunting yet defiant nature of the person she plays will stick with you (hopefully) long after you walk out of the cinema.
Claire Mathon is currently most famous for shooting ‘Portrait of a Lady on Fire’ (which is a masterpiece in its own right) and she also shot this. She says herself in a Vanity Fair article that the film “evokes ghostliness” and that’s exactly what it does. Often it feels like you’re watching it through the lens of a memory, a dream and more specifically a nightmare but maybe one where you can’t run fast enough. The picture that’s painted throughout the film is a portrait of a woman pained by the fear that’s in control of her life and Mathon’s cinematography reflects this, it feels like Stewart is always out of place in the frame, like something is slightly off constantly. The cinematography has a hazy, dreamy sense which is advanced by the fog in the English countryside, the fog at night sometimes making it feel like you’re watching a horror. Which you practically are, the constant apprehension and unease felt throughout the film could arguably class it as a social thriller.
At one point, the royal family is sat down for dinner and it is Christmas Eve. Diana seems to be on the verge of a panic attack and this then devolves into an actual panic attack. The whole time in the corner of the room there’s a live orchestra playing a rising nerve-inducing piece and the diegetic sound of the instruments show that the royal family are literally orchestrating her anxiety and fear. I don’t know, I just think this film is really, really smart. Jonny Greenwood does an incredible job with the score; with every new movie, he’s proving himself to be one of the best film composers of the 21st century. The dark jazz music that’s played when Diana takes centre stage was kind of unexpected but it works perfectly and then the frenzied, orchestral music that’s in the background for the rest of the film compliments the anxious thrill felt throughout.
It’s hard to conclude your thoughts when they’re barely logical as it is, but I’m going to try my best. This is a beautiful vignette and snapshot of a person, sure it’s a fabricated story, but the dark and sinister undertones of what it means to be hunted and haunted by your own family are very much real. Diana asks, “Will they kill me, do you think?” and this underpins how Pablo Larraín, the director, (despicable that I haven’t mentioned him yet because he’s the main reason this film is woven together is such a surreal and cohesive manner) views Diana at this moment in time. She’s paranoid, on edge and more importantly than anything, she’s in pain. She’s been betrayed by the people that were supposed to accept her and now it seems like she’s such an outcast that they’ll resort to murder. And the most heartbreaking part of all of it is that they arguably did. But that’s a whole different article.
(5/5 stars)
