I am finally attending the London film festival after 2 years! This year, for me, started with Spencer, which is about Princess Diana spending the Christmas holidays with the Royal family in 1991, where she decides to leave Prince Charles. I have not seen anything based on Diana before and I don’t know too much about her, so her mental health struggles, like her eating disorder and self-harm was new information to me. Also, this film shows her vomiting a lot, and some scenes can be uncomfortable to watch, so if you find these things triggering, it might be best to stay away.
At first, I had mixed feelings watching this. Half the time I was bored and the other half I was terrified (in a good way). The more I think about the horrifying aspects of this film and Kristen’s performance, the more realise that Spencer might be better than I think it is. I’m the kind of person who’s sometimes too critical on the first watch. I need time to think about it or rewatch it to form a definitive opinion. Unfortunately, it’ll take a while for me to see this film again, so here are my first impressions of Spencer.
To help me with this review, I’d like to talk about, in detail, a scene that really stood out to me and will help me explain why I thought this film was kind of great. So minor spoilers ahead!
Even though I was scared half to death, I’ve got hand it to the director, Pablo Larrain, for taking us deep into Diana’s mind, sometimes to the point where even we, the audience, don’t know what’s real. Spencer is not a mere biopic, it’s a horror movie. It’s an intimate look on Diana’s mental health struggles and how much she is affected by the Royal Family. There are a few scenes which show Diana’s descent into madness. One that starts about 20 minutes into the film, where Diana is called down to have Christmas Eve dinner.
This film has established that Diana has an eating disorder and (obviously) feels uncomfortable being around the Royal Family. Diana also knows that Charles is cheating on her and that he gave the same pearl necklace to Camila. Diana wore this necklace to the dinner. This is the scene that introduces us what we’re getting into and it was so uncomfortable to watch. I love how this film literally follows Diana. We get a tracking shot of her coming in and sitting down. The intense music and Kristen’s performance was the cherry on top. We follow Diana’s eyes with some people staring at her at the table – the feeling of not belonging and the fear of eating. Everything is taunting her. The music becomes louder and more intense through the scene. Diana keeps clutching the pearl necklace, feeling suffocated. She then pulls on the necklace hard and it falls apart and lands in her food. No one says anything. She then starts eating her food, including the pearls in it….yeah. She literally chews on her pearls and I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. “How is she eating those pearls?” “How can her teeth break them apart?” “How is she stomaching it?”
The scene then cuts to Diana walking back to her room in panic, the music continuing to get more intense and loud. Another great tracking shot. We follow her figuratively and literally. Her pain is our pain. We then see her sitting in her room, with her pearls still around her neck. Her eating the pearls was an illusion. The movie does this so often. We feel every aspect of what Diana is feeling, including her hallucinations. Got to also hand to Kristen Stewart for portraying Diana so well. She did better than I thought she would.
Be sure to check out Spencer, coming out in the US and UK on the 5th November. Thanks for reading!
Zerendipity 