Why Kristen Stewart surprises in Lady Diana in "Spencer"

• In "Spencer", Pablo Larrain imagines the Christmas holidays spent by Lady Diana who suffers from the shipwreck of her couple.

• Kristen Stewart delivers a thrilling performance in the role of this lonely and scorned woman.

• This fable flirts with the fantastic to help understand the psychology of the princess.

Spencer

by Pablo Larrain, available this Monday on Prime video, has everything to attract: a mythical princess in distress, Lady Diana and a great actress, Kristen Stewart to play her.

This three-day celebration of Christmas in the royal family shows a very different point of view than in

series .

The couple problems that rotted the life of the thirty-year-old in the early 1990s are at the center of what the director of

defines it as a "fable inspired by a real tragedy".

(Diana's maiden name) is all about the princess, leaving other members of the royal family only in quasi-extra roles.

Only her sons, still children, and the servants seem to really exist author of her.

The Queen and Prince Charles are reduced to unsympathetic silhouettes.

On the edge of fantasy

"We did not seek to reproduce a replica of Diana, explains Pablo Larrain in his note of intent. We wanted to use cinematic tools such as time, space and silence to create a world that recreates the balance between the mystery and the fragility of the character. The director does not hesitate to summon the fantastic when the princess meets Anne Boleyn (1507-1536), queen whom her husband Henry VIII had beheaded to marry another. Obvious spectral support for Diana who has just discovered that Charles gave her the same pearl necklace as his mistress Camilla Parker Bowles for Christmas.

Spencer

reveals a Diana flirting with madness, surrounded by threatening shadows among which we recognize Timothy Spall as a disturbing butler.

These only supports are her chambermaid (very touching Sally Hawkins who tears her rare smiles from the princess) and the Chef (Sean Harris) worried about her escapades and her bouts of bulimia.

Even more than in

, the spectator is the witness of Diane's eating disorders but also of her physical wanderings magnified by a sublime photograph by Claire Mathon (

).

Inside Diana's head

Pablo Larrain is unparalleled in plunging viewers into the mind of a high-profile woman.

As he had done for Jacqueline Kennedy in

, he penetrates the maze of the brain of a woman overwhelmed by history and he drags a quivering Kristen Stewart in her wake.

They celebrate Lady Diana, sure, but also the courage it took her to flee a toxic environment where everything from outfits to menus was imposed on her.

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