Yahoo Finance Spencer: will Princess Diana be Kristen Stewart’s crowning role?
Emma Corrin has competition. The latest actress to take on Princess Diana’s coy glances and cut-glass vowels on screen? Bafta-winning American actress Kristen Stewart.
In many ways the 31-year-old punky Twilight star may seem like a curious choice to play the beloved late British princess, but her performance in new film Spencer has won over (most) critics already. According to reviewers at the premiere at the Venice Film Festival last month, Stewart “gets the voice and mannerisms just right” and is likely to win an Oscar for the film, which was written by Peaky Blinders writer Steven Knight and directed by Chilean Pablo Larraín, who made the 2016 movie Jackie.
Ahead of its release in UK cinemas next week, here’s everything you need to know.
A festive fable
Spencer doesn’t want to steal The Crown’s crown. Unlike Netflix’s royal series, it gets specific, honing in on an (imagined) three-day Christmas holiday at Sandringham in 1991 (it’s marketed as a “fable from a true tragedy” but is reportedly informed by “first-hand accounts” from people who were close with “those involved”).
Crown fans will remember Diana’s tumultuous Christmas with the Royals from series four and it’s a moment screenwriter Knight says he was keen to drill into: not only did that “fateful few days” in Norfolk seemingly mark the beginning of the end for the breakdown of Diana’s marriage with Prince Charles, but it is also a “situation everyone would be able to recognise”: an (often strained) festive period with the family.
People’s princess
Stewart may have risen to fame as protagonist Bella Swan in teen vampire series Twilight, but she’s matured since then, with roles alongside Julianne Moore in Still Alice and Ella Balinska in Charlie’s Angels (2019). She’s also an ambassador for French fashion house Chanel, who loaned some archival items for the filming of Spencer, including an embellished evening gown and red coat. Other standout pieces in the film include a Catherine Walker tartan jacket and a Mondi bomber jacket identical to the one worn by the late princess.
Stewart’s co-star Jack Farthing, who plays Prince Charles, recently praised the Californian actress for nailing the British accent before turning up on set and Knight says she was dedicated to the role from the word go. “She read it and loved it and was prepared to do all of the stuff required to get it right,” he told The Telegraph.
Stewart recently told an interviewer she thinks Spencer is one of her five “really good” films and that by the end of filming she had fallen in love with Diana, unable to stop thinking about her. She’s reportedly been told by insiders that Diana’s daughter-in-law Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, will adore her depiction of the princess.
Paranormality and poise
At the premiere at Venice Film Festival last month, Spencer was praised for defying genre, fluctuating “between drama, dark comedy and at times even horror” with moments of camp and paranormality. Stewart’s performance reportedly received a five-minute standing ovation, with reviewers tipping her for an Oscar for her “spooky” and “near perfect” portrayal of Diana’s elegant mannerisms, “pinpoint” intonation and trademark head-tilt.
The film received a string of five-star reviews but has not been without its criticisms. Stewart’s hair has been called too long and floppy for Diana at the time, and some say the plot has been too heavily dramatised. “They’ve piled every bad thing into one weekend which is taking poetic license a little far,” says Ingrid Seward, editor of Majesty Magazine, who knew, interviewed and wrote about Diana. Given the misery experienced by Diana that Christmas in The Crown’s depiction, Stewart’s festive fable is likely to be a dark one.
Spencer is in cinemas from Nov 5
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