reading all these dumb comments down here once again makes me realize how people have no idea how cinema works and they have no idea who diana really was as a person
"Will they kill me, do you think?"
Don't go into 'Spencer' expecting an ordinary little biopic about Princess Diana. Nope, this is a straight up psychological art house horror thriller. 'Spencer' brilliantly captures the feeling of dread in an isolated foreign space surround by strangers. The royal family themselves are freaking creepy, always watching, always judging.
I must be honest, I wasn't a big fan of Kristen Stewart's recent work, as it never wowed me, and I wasn't convinced that she's improved since Twilight. But man, she's fantastic in this movie and it's one of her best performances to date. Stewart manages to portray Princess Diana in a new light that we haven't really seen before. In my opinion, her other movies failed to show her versatility as an actor, where I fully believe this movie did her justice. I'm just glad this movie won me over.
On the other hand, Timothy Spall is excellent in this movie, and another stand out performance. If you are aware of Spall as an actor, then this isn't surprising news, but I feel it needs repeating. I found him very eerie and overbearing. He plays a man with an eagle eye; he watches everything and everyone in the royal family at Sandringham House.
The major thing that this movie made me realise is that in Diana's life it's the people that kept her mentally and emotionally grounded. Her two sons, her assistant (Sally Hawkins, who is very good in the small scenes she has), and the chef played by Sean Harris, who is someone you would not think of being important.
Sean Harris is a very underrated actor that I wished people talked about more. Harris is known for playing sinister roles, but here I thought he was really sweet and shows a softer side. He's got an interesting sounding voice as well. Jack Farthing as Prince Charles does a great job playing a slimy over-privileged **** Stella Gonet as the Queen who I found really unsettling, especially her dagger eyes.
There's one scene at the dinner table with the other royal family that is one of the most intense things ever. It was anxiety level stress that made my heart racing. All thanks to Pablo Larraín claustrophobic and unique directing. Complimented by Johnny Greenwood's atmospheric, free flowing and tense score.
While I know that certain elements of the movie are fiction, but then again, the movie begins with a title card "based on a tragic fable" and I feel like the movie is playing into the nightmarish fair tale of an iconic figure in history. Diana's life in royalty was no fairy tale, but a Brothers Grimm tale.
Overall rating: The movie has metaphors to ghost, ghost of the past, ghost of old tradition. People who follow tradition isn't too kind to rarity. Great movie.
Zero biographical or historical accuracy. Diana looks and sounds like a complete mad woman. There is no plot, no story, no nothing. It’s just Kristen Stewart vibing for two hours.
They should have released this in time for Halloween it’s the scariest thing I’ve seen all year
The most terrifying horror story of the year has a name: The British royal family
'Spencer' takes place in 1991, during the royal family Christmas celebration, close to Diana and Charles separation. From the very beginning the film is successful in exposing some of the utterly conservative, outdated and ridiculous traditions followed by British royalty such as an extremely specific dress code, obsession with punctuality, weighing themselves before and after all the Xmas activities (they were supposed to gain weight) and hunting pheasants. Diana is already in a very bad place due to Charles's affair with Camilla and having to deal with all of the royal family over Christmas sends her in a downward spiral. This depiction of Diana is given life through Kristen Stewart's outstanding performance with some really nail-biting scenes. Timothy Spall, who plays the role of an equerry, and Sally Hawkins, who is the princess' royal dresser, also deliver fantastic performances. The cinematography is great and the costume design is on point.
Bear in mind that this is a fictionalized story. If you are looking for a biographical film or a more traditional telling of the princess' life you will be disappointed. If you are just looking for a great movie, a great psychological drama or one of Stewart's best performances then you should definitely watch this.
This is not for everyone. Most people expect a salacious Netflix-type of drama but it's more of a slow paced character study of a woman on the verge of a nervous breakdown. I really liked it. Fantastic cinematography and musical score.
What the fuck is wrong with that movie?! I didn't like it at all, I was so interested to watch it because I wanted to know a lot about Diana's life and death. However, in that movie they only focused on a couple of days in her life, which I would have enjoyed, but it was so unreal for me and so disappointed. We already know about how the royal family treats people inside from the Opera talk with Harry and Megan.
I would have loved the movie more if it has the whole story until her death and the conspiracy around it. Christine Stewart acting was bad and so crazy.
"Every Fairy Tale Ends"
It is not the first time that the Chilean Pablo Larraín has made a biographical film, and it is not the first time that one of his biographical films has failed. The problem with Spencer is that, despite brilliantly casting an ever-troubled Kristen Stewart to portray the grieving Diana in one of the most difficult weeks, Steven Knight's script never quite manages to establish the plot. We have the setting, we have the characters, we have the moment, but there is no story that draws us into the movie and keeps us enthralled as the minutes go by. The most disappointing thing is that all the other elements are fine. The performances are good, the costume design by seven-time Oscar nominee Jacqueline Durran is terrific, the production design is adequate, and the soundtrack by Jonny Greenwood is terrific with its overtones of maddened jazz at the most emotionally charged moments. It is a pity that all of the above has not been taken advantage of to deliver a captivating film.
For the first hour of this film I was so excited about it possibly being my first 10/10 rating of this award season but then they had Diana say, with her full chest, that she likes middle class things like les mis, phantom of the opera and fast food, and it just lost some credibility.
Why have all the films I’ve been watching lately had such poor third acts? It’s like filmmakers run out of ideas, but have to make feature length runtime so they just repeat the same themes over and over. Luckily, the themes in this movie were strong enough to hold it together for that shaky finish line, much like Stewart’s performance and the breathtaking photography, score and costume design. Screenplay was lacking at times and Directing was just good enough to make up for it. So a 9 it is!
I was looking forward to watching this but in the end it was just a big disappointment. The script went around in circles without actually saying anything. I was constantly confused with the dialogue. It only focused on a Christmas holiday rather than any progression in her life and didn't do a good job at relating bits to any kind of progression. The director clearly tried to be creative with the hallucinations and the scene changing cuts and the strange flashbacks, but it didn't click or flow smoothly. Not a good portrayal in the end.
Beautiful movie and absolutely nauseating. Very good at making you feel as trapped and dissociative as she was feeling.
Spencer is a poignant film that relays outstanding dramatic tension and an unforgettably impactful sense of poetic justice for a truly inspiring woman, it’s certainly going to maintain a firm spot as one of this year’s best films.
I was finally able to see the film today on the big screen and I must say I really liked it. It‘s such an interesting piece that Pablo Larraín created here. The story is compelling, maybe a little weird at times but definitely kept me interested. Kristen Stewart delivers the performance of a lifetime and watching her act is really so entertaining. I also found it interesting that the director chose not to make the actor‘s completely resemble the real-life royals. But still through their acting they made it all believable. Overall a really good film that I look forward to watching again at home.
“Fuck doctors! What you need is Love...”
Kristen Stewart always has a weird way of moves in her acting that I never get. What's with all dancing moves when you want to look back when you can easily turn your neck? There is so much drama in her moves and I can't get them. Even So I like her so much...
Another Diana biopic. One of the most media-hyped attention whores in the history of the Royal family, until Megan Markle later married one of the offspring and started competing for the title. Are we really supposed to feel sorry for these people who are knowingly marrying into a fortune made up of stolen wealth, from past enslaved colonies from around the world and British tax payers?
I think if someone else played Diana Spencer would have made the movie better.................
I don't understand some complains about the story, sometimes if you want something different it's better to read at least the sinopsis but in the other hand it's way to focused in only one part of the story.
This movie is fascinating. Kristen Stewart is wonderful https://boxd.it/2F6JSJ
Stewart gives an incredible performance as Diana. I don't know how true some of the scenes were on a literal level but in capturing the oppressive nature of life with the Royals, the film is certainly believable.
Bloody awful. Both pro and anti royalists will hate this shyte production. Diana is portrayed as a simpering, whining, immature brat. Kristen Stewart is preposterous in her spastic articulation and breathy voiced caricaturesque portrayal of this sensitive young woman who was totally out of her depth when she signed up for all the pomp and glory. Bollocks I say!
Couldn’t get through it. It was Kristen Stewart - the way she spits out her words and jerks her face and mouth around. Couldn’t get over it since she was supposed to be Diana and not a random fake character.
This movie wasn’t that great. I think it did a dis justice to Diana. I am intrigued by the Royals and all thing Diana …. But this….. not good
Kristen Stewart is fantástic as Lady Di. She does a wonderful role. She deserves an Oscar.
The music was excellent, the best part of the movie. The only negative was Kristen Stewart's accent. You could tell it's fake and it didn't help that her 2 sons for example talked with a natural accent. Also she talked in a very strange way like trying very hard to impersonate Diana, you don't have to. Talk naturally.
Most people don’t seem to grasp the idea of this film being fiction.
Yes it’s trying to give an accurate portrait of what Diana was like, but the story around it is made up entirely and just serves as a vehicle for the point of the film, which is this in-depth look at Diana.
Kirsten Stewart is fantastic in it, she even nails the accent, which most other American actresses would fail at.
It’s also quite well shot, and Johnny Greenwood’s score stands out.
But I think it kinda lacks an interesting character besides her; Timothy Spall, Sally Hawkins and Sean Harris are all great in it, but they’re not given particularly interesting characters.
And the pacing is a bit inconsistent, you really feel it speeding up in the second half, and a lot of the scenes in the first half could’ve been a little shorter.
7.5/10
A visually stunning piece of garbage.
Not grabbing at all, basically just Diana on her own for 90% of movie.
Kristen Stewart is an astounding actress.
My opinion doesn't matter, because I turned it off after 15 minutes. It was just too boring.
Really impressed by Stewart, and I liked this more than I liked Larrain’s previous work in Jackie. Still the same dreamy vibe, but it connected a bit more to the story here for me.
Kristin Stewart stars in the excruciatingly monotonous character drama Spencer. A self-proclaimed fable, the film follows Princess Diana as she has a mental breakdown during a Christmas holiday in the country with the Royal Family. Stewart gives a solid performance, but the script is a mess and requires that the audience already have a knowledge of Diana’s life and her problem with the Royal Family. And there’s something a little unseemly about how her mental illness is depicted. Also, the directing is bland and lifeless. A poorly made film, Spencer is incredibly dull and boring.
rlly good i love kristens acting
I had high hopes after seeing the trailer. Kristin Stewart is beautiful and I think she does a fantastic job. However there is basically no plot - we see her starting off mentally unwell and continuing to do so for the entire movie. It was tense throughout, which might've been better if it there was an ebb and flow to it along with some historic sequence of events. E.g. perhaps starting with her finding out about Charles cheating.
I think Kristen did a good job with the look and voice of Diana. But besides that, the movie is boring and nothing really interesting happens.
The suspense and drama was well executed and I think the story does a great job of showing how alone and ostracised Diana really was. But oh I wish they had picked another actress.
Wanted to watch just for the sake of watching since I like princess diana..but it turned out to be really good. I mean the music, the cinematography, the dialogue and of course kristen’s delivery! Surprisingly loved it!
8/10
Pablo Larraín shows his ability to twist female portraits from a psychological point of view. Diana is a kind of "Rebecca" (1940) faced with a suffocating aristocracy, wearing the same pearl necklace that Prince Charles gives to his lover. It's impossible to fit in a family of disapproving stares. Jonny Greenwood confronts the baroque with jazz, the old with the new, tradition with freedom. The only way is to flee.
I'm a little bit conflicted about this movie. The great locations, production design, costumes, overall setting and supporting characters make it a fantastic environment for "the" Diana of the movie to shine onto the silver screen. And yet it doesn't really happen, at least for me.
I expected great things for this. I loved the idea of Kristen Stewart as Diana, and the stills that were released of the movie before it came out seemed to support this image. It's when she starts trying to "play" Diana, moving and speaking like her, the authenticity seems to fade. It's just not wholly convincing to me, no matter how hard I try, no matter how hard I wanted to love it. It's not a bad performance at all, don't get me wrong, but as I said to my movie-theater companion, when you want to portray a character like this in a story like this, it has to be spot on, has to be almost perfect, for it to work. And it doesn't make it.
I LOVED the costumes. Perfectly set in time, beautiful dresses and suits, Stewart is gorgeous in almost everything she wears in the movie.
We all know the story of Diana, and I guess most people like me filled in the blanks with the idea of a womand who had to have been at her wits' end, lost and looking for anything to help her steady her right on the ground where she wanted to be. The first scene confronts you (and her) with that idea. At a petrol station looking for directions, you (and her as well I think) get confronted with the reality that she really, really does not fit in with the regular people. So even if she would be able to get out of the toxic Windsor family environment, she would never lead a normal life.
You get the idea that the movie is telling the story of how Diana came to be at her wits' end, but near the end of the movie you realize that she has been at the limit of her being for the whole of the film. That doesn't really come across from the screen any earlier to me. And although it has a happy ending, I'm having trouble being at peace with the film. It doesn't give me any answers, lack of a better description for my feeling of emptiness noted. I want to believe Diana could have gone/went through the KFC drivethrough with her boys, ate chicken with them near the Thames and was at peace, at least for a little, but I can't wholeheartedly say that I do.
Perhaps that would be denial of what we know to be reality, a woman who would be haunted by press at every step in her life after meeting, marrying and divorcing one of the Royal British family. How could she ever be at peace. Pablo Larraín does get that across, that eerie feeling of uneasiness, but not really knowing where it comes from.
For the TL;DR, I didn't love the film as much as I expected or wanted to, but I did love certain things about it. In some ways, Kristen Stewart is nothing short of amazing in this, and Pablo Larraín has created a brilliant film. My heart aches a bit after watching it, both because I really wanted to like it more than I do, and because we know the fate of Lady Di and this film depicts only a little bit of what we think she had to go through over those years.
Shout by derrgooBlockedParentSpoilers2021-11-24T01:30:32Z— updated 2021-11-27T07:56:31Z
Personally, I think it would been better just trying to play what really happened instead of a made up movie. I struggle with that when I try to watch.
If I was Diana I would have told that major which was head butler to piss off. That family would make anyone nuts. Like a prison. And how they portray Charles he is a real jerk.