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As he did with 2016's Jackie, director Pablo Larra\xedn explores the life, image, and legacy of a woman publicly struck by tragedy in Spencer, a fabulistic biopic that imagines a Christmas holiday spent with the royal family at Sandringham, during which Princess Diana struggles with the knowledge of her husband's affair and the watchful eyes of both the royals and the paparazzi.\n\nWe discuss our own relationships to both Larra\xedn and Diana, and consider how the film draws on various aspects of the princess's public image in painting a portrait of a woman losing her mind. The film is set squarely within that mind, and Mike argues that it uses several tropes and techniques common to horror in order to dramatise Diana's fracturing mental state. Jos\xe9 expresses his love for Kristen Stewart's outstanding lead performance, one that doesn't impersonate but evokes, and conveys differing stages of psychosis with subtlety.\n\nWe don't agree on everything, and the film isn't perfect, but Spencer is a really remarkable, expressive exploration of an iconic figure.\n\nRecorded on 14th November 2021.