In Spencer, Kristen Stewart shines as Princess Diana in the midst of the breakdown of her marriage to Prince Charles
ABCFrom scowling her way through the rise of proto-riot grrrl Joan Jett to trying on politically radical film star Jean Seberg, Kristen Stewart has been making a habit of reanimating pop culture iconoclasts by refracting them through her own twitchy, mutable diffidence. It's a performance mode that she adapts to her latest rebel girl, the late Diana, Princess of Wales, an even more beloved historical figure pitted against a caricature of tradition – at least according to Spencer, a speculative portrait that captures its distressed subject on a fateful weekend that would catalyse the collapse of her marriage. His portrait of the People's Princess is an occasionally overripe abstraction, designed to flatter the public perception of the one 'likeable' Royal in a historically repugnant – or at least extremely uncool – clan, imagining Diana as a woman on the verge of a nervous breakdown, a little lost girl driven to collapse by a cold, indifferent family. Was Diana yearning for freedom or merely incapable of adult responsibility, of performing the family's professional duties – and does the film, in treating her like a captured princess, infantilise the historical figure? Sure, Diana might be a lot cooler here than she was in real life – at one point she wears a dirty parka over a princess dress and hiking boots, like some 90s alt-rock girl – but the film's designs are clear: reclaiming the former royal as the real People's Princess, complete with a taste for fast food, fast cars, and cheesy anthemic pop.
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Pablo Larraín’s ‘Spencer’ gives Princess Diana an ‘elegant prison’
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Kristen Stewart, 31, shares she knew at age NINE she wanted to be an actress
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Review: Princess Diana gets an abstract and arty ghost story
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Kristen Stewart: New photo of actor as Princess Diana in Spencer biopic shows striking resemblance
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Kristen Stewart channels Princess Diana in Spencer teaser trailer
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First look of Kristen Stewart as Princess Diana in Pablo Larraín's Spencer revealed
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Here's First Look of Kristen Stewart as Princess Diana from 'Spencer'
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