Kristen Stewart starred as the late Princess Diana in Spencer, and fans are curious to know how she did in the iconic role.
The first reviews from the 2021 Venice Film Festival have already started, and critics are now revealing their thoughts about the film and the 31-year-old star’s performance in the film.
Here’s the synopsis of the film, directed by Pablo Laren: December, 1991: The marriage of the Prince and Princess of Wales has long gone cold. Although rumors of affairs and divorce abound, peace is organized for Christmas celebrations at the Sandringham estate. There is food and drink, shooting and hunting. Diana knows sports. This year, things will be completely different.
Deadline raved, writing: ” I can’t say enough about Stewart’s performance, steering from an impression of an impossibly well-chronicled figure to beautifully achieving the essence of who she was. It is a bracing, bitter, moving, and altogether stunning turn, taking Diana down roads we have not seen played out quite like in this mesmerizing portrayal.”
The Telegraph gave the film five out of five stars, calling Kristen‘s performance “masterful,” and saying the movie is “thrillingly gutsy,” and that “this apocryphal tale teems with shocks, laughter and tenderness.”
THR said that the movie “won’t be for everyone, though the eternal cult of worship around the Princess of Wales — and curiosity to see Stewart fling herself without a safety net into a role for which she’s far from an obvious choice — will make it a must-see for many.”
The Guardian gave the movie five out of five stars, calling the movie “extraordinary,” and saying Kristen plays an “entirely compelling Di that has no escape from the dress-up game of monarchy.”
Variety also had praise from Kristen’s performance, writing: “Kristen Stewart doesn’t just do an impersonation (though on the level of impersonation she’s superb). She transforms; she changes her aspect, her rhythm, her karma. Watching her play Diana, we see an echo, perhaps, of Stewart’s own ambivalent relationship to stardom…mostly, though, what we see in Stewart’s Diana is a woman of natural-born elegance, with a luminosity that pours out of her, except that part of her is now driven to crush that radiance, because her life has become a wreck.”