A Happy Family Christmas! by Jon Cox

At the 20th Cornwall Film Festival, Jon Cox watches Spencer where Kristen Stewart gives a star turn as Princess Diana. Trigger Warning: contains references to self-harm, bulimia, psychotic episodes.

So, who is looking forward to Christmas? The delight of being locked up with stiff family elders, disagreeable spouses and creepy relatives for the three-day festive period. A food bender and dodgy presents in the hazardous confines of the home. What could possibly go wrong?

Actually, everything for Princess Diana in Spencer, a reimagined 1991 Christmas holiday with a warts-and-all portrayal of bulimia and self-harm amid her unravelling at the hands of the royal family and institutional suffocation. Diana’s fragile mental health is poignantly portrayed by Kristen Stewart, tipped for an Oscar nomination for her role, while director Pablo Larrain captures the military straight-jacketed grandeur of the monarchy.

The film opens with a convoy of supplies and servants arriving at the Queen’s country estate in Sandringham to set up camp ahead of the royal family on Christmas Eve. Late and alone, Diana is greeted by a crotchety royal family equerry. Major Alistair Gregory, played by Timothy Spalling radiating aristocratic scorn, is charged with keeping Diana in check. The film is set six months before Diana and Charles separated, and the relationship between the family and Diana is as bleak and chilly as the Norfolk countryside.

Diana mentally and physically tries to escape her gilded cage. She uses wire cutters to reopen the stitched together curtains in her bedroom, cut through the barbed wire around her (now abandoned) former family home, and cut herself. Gregory is the enforcer of the regime. Diana should do her duty and wear the different dresses, specifically selected for each meal by the future king, instead of cowering in the toilets or seeking paparazzi attention.

Larrain, best known for Jackie, a biography of another 20th Century style icon, Jacqueline ‘Jackie’ Kennedy, weaponizes Diana’s outfits. Diana refuses to be her cheating husband’s peacock and wears what she wants. She misses royal family meals, and in anguish about her relationship and role within the monarchy, roams around the kitchen and grounds in the middle of the night. Gregory leaves out a book about Anne Boleyn for Diana to read. The executed queen appears in hallucinations during psychotic episodes - a part of the film that does not really work.

In contrast to Diana and Gregory, the royal family appears robotic. Lacking compassion or much dialogue, the family is as alien as its tradition of opening presents on Christmas Eve. Charles shamelessly gives Diana the same identical pearl necklace he gives to his lover, Camilla Parker Bowles. ‘The people’s princess’ is at least loved by some of the help, notably Maggie, the Royal Dresser. Darren McGrady, the Royal Head Chef, is also an ally. But generally, Diana is on her own and even moments with her sons are relatively brief. Spencer feels like a Kristen Stewart vehicle with the American actress, still best known for her role in the Twilight series, barely out of shot during the film’s 111 minutes run time.

Backed by German money, producer Paul Webster said no British financing was forthcoming, reflecting the sensitivity of the subject matter and the not inconsiderable reputation of ‘the firm’. Most of the film was made in Germany during Covid which led to substantial cost overruns for an independent movie budgeted at less than 20 million dollars.

Spencer’s happy ending feels contrived. Diana escapes Sandringham with her sons on Boxing Day for a KFC dinner after being told she just needs ‘love, shocks and laughter,’ (don’t we all). Overall, a moving, different take on the Diana myth involving some heavy subject matters.

Maybe I won’t go home for Christmas after all.

Edited by Tia Jade Woolcock