Spencer (2021)

Quartile rating: 7/10 · 1 rating

During her Christmas holidays with the royal family at the Sandringham estate in Norfolk, England, Diana decides to leave her marriage to Prince Charles.

The Quartile Take

Kristen Stewart's performance as Diana is a genuine career-best, earning a rare 4 — wholly committed, physically precise, and emotionally raw. Jonny Greenwood's score and Claire Mathon's cinematography are equally exceptional, creating a claustrophobic, impressionistic visual language that elevates the film well above standard biographical drama. The plot, however, is thin by design — little actually happens narratively over the three days, and the psychodrama can tip into overwrought melodrama, keeping it at a 2. Novelty is above average but not singular: Pablo Larraín's approach (following his Jackie) is distinctive in mood and form but feels like a refinement of an established personal style rather than something wholly new. The ending, Diana driving away with her sons to KFC, is tonally jarring and emotionally ambiguous — intentionally so — but lands somewhere between liberating and underwhelming depending on the viewer, placing it solidly at 3.

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