The film Spencer (VF) returns to a key period in the life of Princess Diana. Kristen Stewart is the star, and she is glowing there. This biographical fiction is presented as a “tale built around real facts”, a proposition which allows freedom from History, of course, but which, above all, allows the filmmaker a narrative and formal approach devoid of shackles. This is no coincidence, Lady Di having struggled during her lifetime to free herself from the royal yoke.
With Spencer, Pablo Larraín continues what seems to be the second phase of his work. After a majority of films portrayed by unusual male characters, Post mortem To Neruda Passing by El Club, the Chilean filmmaker offers a third portrait of an extraordinary woman, after Jackie and Ema. Paradoxically, the structure is very simple, with an eventful stay at Sandringham Estate declined in three acts.
Outside the walls of this monstrously large mansion where Diana is practically captive, the atmosphere changes, the ethereal light of the beginning of the film becoming gray and leaden, before taking on an almost nightmarish dimension. From the first to the third day, the heroine’s mental health deteriorates: her morbid thoughts turn into dreams, before they manifest themselves in hallucinations.
The prologue is amazing with subtle mastery. In the English countryside at dawn, we can see in the distance a military convoy carrying the royal victuals. On the property, the kitchen squad takes over from the soldiers. Lots of busy people.
At the same time, Diana drives on an unescorted, late and lost side road. A failed act? Everything is there from the start: the bustling royal circus and, aside, Diana. Subsequently, Pablo Larraín turns out to be skilled at translating the complex and sometimes contradictory emotions that plague Diana.
Poignant scenes
Indeed, as much Diana would like to reject the royal diktats which oppress her, she suffers from feeling judged at every turn (approached without evasiveness, her bulimia seems to be the only thing that gives her an illusion of control). The result is a feeling of alienation that grows and culminates during these three pivotal days.
The gradation of this painful introspection is admirably modulated, both narratively and in the acting of Kristen Stewart, who disappears in the guise of the “people’s princess”.
Obviously, the knowledge of his tragic fate makes several scenes poignant. As when she chats with her dresser and confidante (wonderful Sally Hawkins), noting that once time has done its work, the monarchs are summed up in just one word: William the Conqueror, Elizabeth the virgin queen, etc.
Ultimately, what qualifier will be attributed to it by History, she wonders. There is nothing vain about reflection, on the contrary: melancholy, vulnerable, Diana then tries not to sink.
Glossy keys
Visually exquisite, the film is crammed with shiny touches, like this book Diana finds on her nightstand: Anne Boleyn, princess and martyr. From then on, she multiplies the parallels between her and the second wife of Henry VIII: “She was accused of having a lover when it was he who had a mistress”, notes Diana after seeing Camilla Bowles.
Camilla Bowles, whom she nicknamed Jane Seymour, in reference to the one who took Anne Boleyn’s place after she was guillotined: happy thoughts.
The filmmaker evokes the isolation in which the protagonist is immersed, for example by filming close-ups with a wide-angle lens which accentuates the perspective and which exacerbates the separation between Diana and her environment. It is this kitchen staff who, entering the dining room at the same time as her, becomes for a second a cloud in which Diana is drowning. It is also this passage where, on Christmas morning, she recovers a pearl necklace identical to the one offered to her rival in the deserted living room.
Ditto for the constant surveillance Diana is subject to when she thinks only of running away, and which results, among other things, in all these occurrences where people come knocking on the closet door with insistence after Diana took refuge there.
True balm for this haunting ordeal: her two sons, whom she coaxes and tries to protect. During the scene where they are having fun in the middle of the night, in total secrecy, the dialogue and the emotion are so natural, so real, that one would think the moment was improvised.
With Spencer, Pablo Larraín does not claim to deliver the ultimate and definitive truth about who Diana was. His approach, unlike too many biographical productions, is more about trying to understand than explaining. The nuance is fundamental.
Based on a detailed and scholarly scenario by Steven Knight, the filmmaker looks at Diana with real empathy. A quality, if we are to believe this Story with a capital H which decides everything, would correspond well enough to the human being that was this princess.