Spencer (Pablo Larraín, 2021)

Spencer reminded me most not of Jackie (2016), Larraín's previous foray into iconic female suffering, but László Nemes' Son of Saul (2015) which strongly suggests the problems some audiences will experience with this biopic. A glimpse into the routines horrors of the Auschwitz death camp, Son of Saul follows the Sonderkommando as they try to make themselves small enough to avoid the ambient violence as long as possible. They scurry about, coming together only in brief meetings and speaking in clipped, sotto voce phrases. Similarly (and I use that word with much trepidation), Princess Diana (a jaw-dropping Kristen Stewart) spends most of Spencer's running time avoiding the royal family during Christmas 1991 at the Sandringham Estate. She talks in a near-constant whisper even when she's wings away from the icy glowering of The Queen (an intimidating Stella Gomet). And she escapes into sundry nooks around the estate, most memorably a walk-in refrigerator with shelves of fancy desserts. The question remains, however, as to whether or not anyone should spend a nanosecond more pondering the grief of a privileged figure who continues to command so much media real estate, even up to this very moment with the promised sixth season of The Crown and the unspeakable Diana: The Musical. 

I say Larraín justifies the expenditure by focusing on a comparatively banal moment in Diana's life whereas Jackie is consumed yet again with the overdetermined event of JFK's assassination. This way, the film becomes a more generalizable parable on private vs. public. Also to Larraín's credit is the fact that the most affecting moments pull the focus away from explicit suffering. Several scenes are devoted to Diana briefly escaping her grief by confiding in her Royal Dresser Maggie (Sally Hawkins, typically fantastic). And, in the most moving scene of all, Diana wakes up Harry and William (Freddie Spry and Jack Nielen) in the middle of the night for a role-playing game that tries to say everything that royal propriety prevents them from making explicit. Coupled with a career performance from Stewart, these moments make Spencer a refreshing parallax view on a life too easily understood.

Grade: A-minus