By Emma Watkins ’23
Copy Chief & Arts & Entertainment Editor
Content warning: this review discusses self-harm and eating disorders.
From her very first line — “Where the fuck am I?” — the Princess Diana depicted in Chilean filmmaker Pablo Larraín’s historical drama “Spencer” is established as gritty and unwilling to hold back. Scenic shots showing Diana driving disoriented in the English countryside make it clear that the Princess of Wales, played beautifully by Kristen Stewart, is lost. Literally, but also in spirit. As Diana gazes around at her surroundings, she asks a passerby, “How could I get lost in a place where I used to play?” This question epitomizes the tragic but heavy-handed dialogue that persists throughout the rest of the film. While “Spencer” features a stellar performance by Stewart, an appropriately eerie soundtrack and artful cinematography, the movie suffers greatly from a script that relies on cheesy metaphors and allows little room for subtext or interpretation from the audience.
With “Spencer,” which premiered on Nov. 5, Larraín — who previously directed a biopic of former First Lady Jackie Kennedy — crafts a film that subverts the expectations of a more traditional, factually-rooted biopic. “Spencer” opens with the disclaimer “a fable from a true tragedy,” which alerts the audience that the film is a highly fictionalized account of Diana’s weekend of Christmas celebrations with the royal family. Though its promotional content made it seem like the film would be a historical drama by only showcasing the moments that stayed closer to reality and “true tragedy,” the film feels more like a psychological thriller. The plot showcases the declining mental health of the princess in graphic and disturbing ways. Often, it feels more like the American psychological horror film “Black Swan” than “The Crown,” Netflix’s historical drama series revolving around Queen Elizabeth II. This unexpected shift in genre could have been the movie’s triumph, separating it from the many other depictions of the late princess. However, its reliance on sensationalized, uncomfortable and artfully-absurdist portrayals of mental illness veers nearly into the realm of body horror. These elements are gratuitous and undercut the story’s “true tragedy.”
From the film’s start, viewers are introduced to the unsettling musical motif of choppy strings and other discombobulating instrumentals, arranged by composer and Radiohead guitarist Jonny Greenwood. Similar musical motifs last throughout the movie, communicating Diana’s declining mental state.
Diana’s moments of reprieve from the royals occur during time alone with her sons — Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, and Prince William, Duke of Cambridge — and moments alone outside. Heavy-handed dialogue distracts from what could have been a touching scene when Diana muses to her sons, “Here, in this house, there is no future. Past and the present are the same thing.” In this line, Diana bluntly communicates her attitude towards her surroundings in a scenario where it may not make sense to do so, foregoing an opportunity for subtler, more complex characterization.
In one of her stolen moments outdoors, Diana sits on some steps on the outskirts of Queen’s country house, Sandringham Estate, but is found by the ever-observing Major Alistar Gregory (Timothy Spall). Gregory proceeds to tell Diana the story of an unbroken horse, to which she replies, “I hope your friend’s wild horse was never tamed.” Lines like this, which emphasize Diana’s isolation and repression upon entering the royal family as a non-royal, along with the plethora of caged-bird metaphors present throughout the film, reduce the nuances of mental illness and loss of agency to clichés.
One of the most bizarre aspects of the film is the braiding of highly fictionalized reality with Diana’s morbid daydreams, showing her detachment from the real world. In a particularly striking scene, Diana discovers that her husband, Charles, Prince of Wales (Jack Farthing), gave her the same necklace he gave to Camilla, his then-mistress. Diana rips the necklace from her throat, sending the large pearls directly into her soup dish. She proceeds to shovel the now pearl-filled soup into her mouth, choking it down to the last drop. Seconds later, the camera’s gaze refocuses, zooming out to show Diana’s necklace in pristine condition around her neck and revealing that she imagined it breaking.
This scene is immediately followed by one showing Diana’s experience with bulimia. While it is not entirely glamorized, this repeated depiction of the eating disorder may be extremely triggering to audience members in recovery. These depictions seem to serve more as trauma porn than necessary additions to the film due being overbearingly graphic and frequent. Martha Williams, a Clinical Advice Coordinator from the eating disorder charity Beat spoke to Metro UK News about their concerns with the film, stating that they worry about the lack of information accompanying its depictions of bulimia and self harm. They also raised concerns about it glamorizing bulimia, explaining that “some aspects of the film, we felt, seemed to glamorise the eating disorder. [There] was an image of Diana wearing a ball gown and slouching over the toilet, and I think the issue with glamorising eating disorders is that it adds to the stereotype. [It’s seen] as [an] illness of luxury and a middle class white female’s disease, which obviously just isn’t the case.”
Other moments of Diana’s false reality involve an apparition of the second wife of Henry VIII, Anne Boleyn (Amy Manson), inspired by her late-night readings of a book about the royal, which is aptly titled “Anne Boleyn: The Life and Death of a Martyr.” In these “Black Swan”-esque visions, Boleyn serves as a ghostly guide for Diana, encouraging her to break free of the restrictions and expectations the royal family places upon her. But until the very end of the film, in which their ultimate significance is revealed, the visions are cheesy rather than poignant, and are only saved by Stewart’s captivating delivery of the otherwise lackluster script.
Stewart’s performance is one of the few redeeming qualities of the movie. Even in the very first promotional images, Stewart embodies the late princess. In an interview with the BBC, Stewart revealed that she closely studied Diana’s facial expressions and mannerisms, reading about her, looking at every photo of her and watching all the interviews she could find. Stewart’s dedication to studying Diana shows during a paparazzi scene where she masterfully mirrors Diana’s iconic head-lowered, eyes-downcast soft smile. Stewart’s performance is haunting, and rightfully so for a “fable from a true tragedy.” But her success in the role is overshadowed by the gratuitous, glamorized depictions of mental illness and moments in the script that are more cringeworthy than moving.