Spencer

MOVIE #1,068 • 🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿 • 07.18.23 THIS IS A JOINT REVIEW WITH 2019's RICHARD JEWELL In many ways, this was the perfect double feature: a pair of recent(ish) biopics made in opposing styles, one on a topic I was vastly interested in, and another which I wasn’t at all. 2019’s Richard Jewell by Clint Eastwood is indicative of his recent work: it’s competent and informative and just entertaining enough (though so visually flat, it almost has no style at all). And on the flipside, Pablo Larraín’s Princess Di Christmas movie Spencer is largely all-style (what substance is mostly imagined, fictionalized to the point of it being labeled a “fable” at the onset of the film).

For the latter, I had to pivot about 45 minutes in and start thinking of it as a story about “a woman in trouble” (in the INLAND EMPIRE sense) and not a biopic about the Royal Family, which is just something I couldn’t give less of a shit about. Honestly, on the “Less of a Shit Pantheon,” they are at the very very top (or bottom feels more appropriate — this Pantheon is a pit and I’ve kicked this trash in it first). Equal parts insufferable and uninteresting, those blokes.

Though it was amazing how much drama they were able to milk out of a story which is essentially “lady doesn’t want to eat dinner with her in-laws.” And Kristen Stewart does (somehow) manage to transcend ‘Kristen Stewart doing a Princess Diana’ impression, which when you first see her on screen feels impossible. So, needless to say, I was able to enjoy this one much more than I anticipated at the onset. It’s well-acted and its lovely 16mm cinematography gave it a timeless vibe which really worked.

Conversely, my appreciation for Eastwood’s Jewell worked in a totally different manner. I was invested in the story from the get-go. I remember the Olympic bombing and subsequent hoopla surrounding the titular character but I was just a tween when it happened, so all of the details of this fascinating saga felt fresh to me. And I was able to overlook some of the bad writing (Olivia Wilde’s characters is a total mess) and stock pandering and/or exaggerated biopic stuff. Plus, Paul Walter Hauser is the real deal, and I’m not sure if the film would have worked at all with a lesser actor in the role.

---

CHRONOLOGICALLY
⫷ MOVIE #1,067 - (YOU ARE HERE) - MOVIE #1,069 ⫸

---

Spencer is a 2021 historical psychological drama film directed by Pablo Larraín from a screenplay 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 Diana and Charles respectively, joined by Timothy Spall, Sean Harris, and Sally Hawkins. It was released on September 3, 2021.