SPENCER Trailer

An icon is reimagined in Spencer, the latest from director Pablo Larraín.

You think you know Diana, Princess of Wales, but I guarantee you don’t know the Diana Larraín will conjure up. He loves a good reframing of generation-defining figures, most notably having indulged and twisted the fallen paradise promised by the Kennedys in Jackie. Turning that imaginative gaze across the pond will almost certainly prove as jarring to your pop culture assumptions, making this a biopic that, even with a trailer released, still feels like it could spin off in any direction.

Ostensibly, the film centers on a tumultuous holiday retreat to the Sandringham Estate, a country home of the Queen where the royal family can “relax”. By this point the marriage between Diana and Prince Charles had deteriorated beyond repair, but custom held them together, as it holds together all business of the royal family. And business their marriage was, making it all the more complicated for Diana to get out of.

The ball of nerves yet masterful media manipulator Diana is played by none other than Kristen Stewart, a bit of casting that has plenty of real-life parallels yet will push Stewart far beyond what’s been asked of her before. Other members of the royal family and their assorted guests will be played by Jack Farthing, Timothy Spall, Sean Harris, and Sally Hawkins.

Rave reviews from its festival run only confirms what so many of us already suspected: that Spencer is likely to be one of the strangest and most rewarding of the films of the year.

Spencer is directed by Pablo Larraín and stars Kristen Stewart, Timothy Spall, and Sally Hawkins. It will be released in the US and the UK on November 5th, 2021. For international release dates, click here.

Will you drop in on the people’s princess? Let us know in the comments!