Kristen Stewart, Diana Spencer, and the Ghost of Anne Boleyn
In the new biopic Spencer, Diana Spencer, Princess of Wales, wanders her decaying childhood home, talking with Anne Boleyn’s ghost. The beheaded second wife of King Henry VIII warns Diana of her dispensability as a royal and tells her to assert her power. It is not, strictly speaking, a faithful reproduction of history.
The surreal film from the Jackie director Pablo Larraín presents Kristen Stewart as the late ex-wife of Prince Charles in a meta bit of casting. Just as the movie’s Diana saw herself in Anne Boleyn, the audience might see Stewart in Diana’s path. Both women were publicity darlings who found themselves hounded by tabloids over the rise and fall of their fairy-tale romances.
And with Stewart’s onetime tween royalty in Twilight reflected in her performance of actual royalty, Spencer is primed to generate the first high-profile awards buzz for an actor who, it should be said, has always been great. (Her casting as Diana had its doubters, but one thing is certain: Stewart knows how to play a melancholy young woman marrying into an ancient family of pale monsters.)
Ultimately though, does the unique performance, direction, and script of this movie depict the real Princess Diana? Is it even trying to? Sophie Gilbert, David Sims, and Shirley Li discussed the film on The Review, our culture podcast. Listen to their conversation here:
The following transcript has been edited for length and clarity. It contains spoilers for Spencer.
David Sims:Newly released in cinemas from Pablo Larraín, the Chilean director of such films as , is an awards-tipped biopic about Princess Diana: . It stars Kristen Stewart as the Princess of Wales. It’s a sort of fantasy biopic set over a weekend in 1991, when Diana’s marriage to Prince Charles was falling apart and her relationship with the Royal Family was strained. “What if everything you knew about Princess Diana was all happening in one weekend?” That’s the basic premise here.
