Heavy and at times heavy-handed, Spencer isn't a conventional film but it succeeds in depicting a version of Diana's suffocating experience of being of the royal family. It was the combination of Kristen Stewart and director Pablo Larrain's previous Jackie that got me to watch it. For me, the happy ending, with Diana and her children breaking free, would have felt unearned were it not for my (and everyone's knowledge) of how the real Diana's story ended - which turns it instead into a sad ending, or at the very least bittersweet one, and not of the type to romanticise. (Also - neat jazz soundtrack courtesy of Jonny Greenwood.)
(w/ trang)
