Spencer (2021)

This self-described "fable from a true tragedy" about the Princess of Wales is heartbreaking and beautiful. Kristen Stewart is getting Oscar buzz as the late Diana and it's well deserved, as we watch her struggle mightily over a few days in 1991 with anxiety, repression, and bulimia in her castle prison. The movie makes no pretense of being exactly truthful in its events or chronology. 

Apparently Stewart spent a lot of time perfecting her English accent, with help from the same dialect coach used by Emmy winner Emma Corrin, who played Diana in The Crown series.

Among the many in the supporting cast, Sally Hawkins' Maggie stands out. Maggie was inspired by a real palace employee who prefers to remain anonymous.

Pablo Larraín directs from a script by Steven Knight and the tension is palpable. Larraín, for one, is no stranger to fictionalized accounts of real people, as in Neruda and Jackie, the latter of which earned Natalie Portman her third Oscar nomination (she won one of them, for Black Swan). But I digress.

Jonny Greenwood's score (occasionally described in the captions as "discordant") can be streamed on Apple Music and elsewhere. Not at all discordant are the magnificent costumes by Jacqueline Durran, many of which recreate actual ensembles worn by Diana, and the spectacular photography by Claire Mathon, shot in Germany (Hesse, North Rhine-Westphalia, Berlin, Brandenberg) and Norfolk, England.

Stewart was last blogged for JT LeRoy, Hawkins for The Shape of Water, Larraín for Neruda, Knight for Allied, Greenwood for You Were Never Really Here, Durran for Little Women (she won the Oscar for it), and Mathon for Portrait of a Lady on Fire (she won the César Award, the French equivalent of the Oscars, for that).

Rotten Tomatoes' critics' average is only semi-royal at 83%, while its audiences are much more common with a scant 52. Jack and I enjoyed it when we rented it on iTunes on December 5.