Spencer (2021)
Country: GB/GER/US/CHIL
Technical: col/1.66:1 117m
Director: Pablo Larraín
Cast: Kristen Stewart, Timothy Spall, Sean Harris, Sally Hawkins
Synopsis:
Christmas at Sandringham becomes a ghastly hall of mirrors for the Princess of Wales, as she fights against the rigidity of expectations surrounding the seasonal traditions, and sublimates her marital difficulties to the point of hallucinating she is Anne Boleyn.
Review:
The Chilean lover of one-word titles, whose special skill with the biopic form is to make it so much more than a mere recreation of biographical events, here assays the rarefied world of British royalty. So soon after The Crown it might seem redundant, but Stewart and the production team contrive a magnificent rendering of Diana's state of mind prior to her separation from Charles, not without humour, and extending its empathetic embrace to the family figures (admittedly confined to Charles and the Queen) who might otherwise have been unfairly demonised. By its own declaration a 'fable' based on a tragedy, what one might call 'the princess as currency' fable, it does not lay claim to reality, indeed there are times when it makes Sandringham seem like the Overlook Hotel, but it does put clothes on the scarecrow of the Diana myth, reminding us that really she was loved by everyone. It's just that she was in the worst possible institution for receiving the kind of help she needed.
Country: GB/GER/US/CHIL
Technical: col/1.66:1 117m
Director: Pablo Larraín
Cast: Kristen Stewart, Timothy Spall, Sean Harris, Sally Hawkins
Synopsis:
Christmas at Sandringham becomes a ghastly hall of mirrors for the Princess of Wales, as she fights against the rigidity of expectations surrounding the seasonal traditions, and sublimates her marital difficulties to the point of hallucinating she is Anne Boleyn.
Review:
The Chilean lover of one-word titles, whose special skill with the biopic form is to make it so much more than a mere recreation of biographical events, here assays the rarefied world of British royalty. So soon after The Crown it might seem redundant, but Stewart and the production team contrive a magnificent rendering of Diana's state of mind prior to her separation from Charles, not without humour, and extending its empathetic embrace to the family figures (admittedly confined to Charles and the Queen) who might otherwise have been unfairly demonised. By its own declaration a 'fable' based on a tragedy, what one might call 'the princess as currency' fable, it does not lay claim to reality, indeed there are times when it makes Sandringham seem like the Overlook Hotel, but it does put clothes on the scarecrow of the Diana myth, reminding us that really she was loved by everyone. It's just that she was in the worst possible institution for receiving the kind of help she needed.
Country: GB/GER/US/CHIL
Technical: col/1.66:1 117m
Director: Pablo Larraín
Cast: Kristen Stewart, Timothy Spall, Sean Harris, Sally Hawkins
Synopsis:
Christmas at Sandringham becomes a ghastly hall of mirrors for the Princess of Wales, as she fights against the rigidity of expectations surrounding the seasonal traditions, and sublimates her marital difficulties to the point of hallucinating she is Anne Boleyn.
Review:
The Chilean lover of one-word titles, whose special skill with the biopic form is to make it so much more than a mere recreation of biographical events, here assays the rarefied world of British royalty. So soon after The Crown it might seem redundant, but Stewart and the production team contrive a magnificent rendering of Diana's state of mind prior to her separation from Charles, not without humour, and extending its empathetic embrace to the family figures (admittedly confined to Charles and the Queen) who might otherwise have been unfairly demonised. By its own declaration a 'fable' based on a tragedy, what one might call 'the princess as currency' fable, it does not lay claim to reality, indeed there are times when it makes Sandringham seem like the Overlook Hotel, but it does put clothes on the scarecrow of the Diana myth, reminding us that really she was loved by everyone. It's just that she was in the worst possible institution for receiving the kind of help she needed.