Spencer Movie Storyline. The marriage between Princess Diana and Prince Charles has long since grown cold. Though rumors of affairs and a divorce abound, peace is ordained for the Christmas festivities at the Queen’s estate. There’s eating and drinking, shooting and hunting. Diana knows the game, but this year, things will be profoundly different.
December 1991, Sandringham Estate, Norfolk. With Christmas Eve just around the corner, Diana Frances Spencer, The Honourable Princess Diana of Wales, is struggling to reclaim her lost self, against the backdrop of the strained relationship with her husband Prince Charles and his extramarital affair with Camilla Parker-Bowles.
Having spent years trying to live up to expectations, Princess Diana reunites with her sons, Prince William and Prince Harry, and attempts to keep her chin up, bracing herself up for the imminent holiday festivities in one of the royal residences of Her Majesty The Queen Elizabeth II. However, as dreadful rumours of infidelity and divorce take a heavy toll on her marriage and increasingly-fragile mental health, vivid visions start to haunt Princess Diana–unfavourable and prophetic omens of the inevitable.
Spencer is a 2021 historical fiction psychological drama film directed by Pablo Larraín and written by Steven Knight. The film is about Princess Diana’s existential crisis during the Christmas of 1991, as she considers divorcing Prince Charles and leaving the British royal family. Kristen Stewart and Jack Farthing star as Princess Diana and Prince Charles respectively, joined by Timothy Spall, Sean Harris, and Sally Hawkins. Spencer was the last film to be distributed by STX Entertainment in the U.K. before its U.K. distributor was shut down on July 28, 2022.
Spencer premiered at the 78th Venice International Film Festival on 3 September 2021, and was theatrically released in the United Kingdom and the United States on 5 November 2021. The film has grossed over $23 million worldwide and received generally positive reviews from critics, with Stewart’s performance garnering widespread acclaim. For her portrayal of Diana, Stewart was nominated for the Academy Award, Golden Globe Award, and Critics’ Choice Movie Award for Best Actress.
Film Review for Spencer
On Christmas Eve 1991, the British royal family prepares to spend the Christmas holidays at the Queen’s Sandringham estate in Norfolk. Among the attendees is Diana, Princess of Wales, whose marriage to Prince Charles has become strained due to his affair with Camilla Parker Bowles. The staff of Sandringham prepare for the royals’ arrival, and Diana drives around the Norfolk countryside.
On the verge of a breakdown, she avoids heading to Sandringham until running into Royal Head Chef Darren McGrady. She notes that the long-abandoned neighbouring estate, Park House, used to be her childhood home. Then she notices a scarecrow in the distance and eagerly runs towards it with a nostalgic expression. Diana takes off its jacket, which once belonged to her father John Spencer, 8th Earl Spencer, and goes back to her car.
When Diana arrives at Sandringham, her sons William and Harry are excited to see her, but she does not attempt to socialise with the royal family, who mostly ignore her. Diana’s only friend at the Estate is Royal Dresser Maggie, who encourages her to both combat the royal family and fulfil the obligations expected of her. Diana finds a book on Anne Boleyn in her assigned bedroom.
She begins to have dreams about Boleyn (including a hallucination of her at a Christmas Eve dinner where she imagines herself destroying a pearl necklace given to her by Charles and eating the pearls in her soup), eventually coming to believe that Boleyn’s ghost is haunting her in her capacity as a fellow abandoned royal wife. Diana tries to visit her childhood home but she is stopped by royal guards, who initially mistake her for an intruder.
On Christmas Day, Diana attends the service at St Mary Magdalene Church, Sandringham, where she notices Camilla among the gathered crowd and is photographed by numerous intrusive journalists. She holds a difficult conversation with Charles, who rebuffs her concern over William and Harry’s participation in a pheasant shoot the next day and advises her to develop a stronger sense of separation between her public and private lives.
Charles privately arranges for Maggie to be sent to London and spreads rumours that she had planted the Boleyn book in Diana’s room and made critical comments about her mental health; McGrady denies that she had done so when Diana questions him. Major Gregory attempts to encourage Diana to conform to the pressures of royal life by reminding her that the soldiers of the British Army die attempting to protect the interests of the Crown (and by extension her interests); Diana responds by stating that she never asked anyone to die for her.
After imagining wounding herself with a pair of wirecutters given to her by McGrady, Diana avoids the formal Christmas Day dinner, instead running to her childhood home and gaining access to it with the wirecutters. Memories of her happier girlhood overtake her, and she dances from room to room while imagining her younger selves. She considers committing suicide by throwing herself down a flight of stairs, but the hallucination of Boleyn stops her. Instead, she rips apart her pearl necklace.
Spencer (2021)
Directed by: Pablo Larraín
Starring: Kristen Stewart, Timothy Spall, Sean Harris, Sally Hawkins, Jack Farthing, Jack Nielen, Freddie Spry, Stella Gonet, Richard Sammel, Olga Hellsing, Thomas Douglas, Oriana Gordon
Screenplay by: Steven Knight
Production Design by: Guy Hendrix Dyas
Cinematography by: Claire Mathon
Film Editing by: Sebastián Sepúlveda
Costume Design by: Jacqueline Durran
Set Decoration by: Yesim Zolan
Art Direction by: Ralf Schreck, Stefan Speth
Music by: Jonny Greenwood
MPAA Rating: None.
Distributed by: Neon (United States) STX Entertainment (United Kingdom)
Release Date: September 3, 2021 (Venice), November 5, 2021 (United States)
Views: 75
