Spencer

In a breathless, headlong way, Stewart does a credible job, but she’s perched on the edge of hysteria throughout and the upbeat ending fails to alter the impression that she and Larraín have delivered a one-dimensional portrait of a victim.

Stewart was an unlikely but, it's now clear, ingenious choice for the role; she's going through such a period of pronounced anguish that the wrong kind of actor would have played the whole thing as overwrought, and ruined it.

By exhuming Dynasty Di from her saintly casket, Larraín and Stewart have done the world a great favor.

Leave it to actor Stewart to save the day. Ninety percent of the time she brings the spirit and look of Princess Di back to earth in an eerily real performance that captures the spirit of Buckingham Palace's most rebellious daughter-in-law.

What must it be like for an actor to play a famous person, let alone one this impossibly famous? The challenge starts with resemblance, and Stewart gets Diana's wounded-deer manner, the sulky eyes, the slight tilt of the head.

A film that spends nearly two hours advancing already axiomatic notions-obscene opulence does not equal freedom; protocol is a prison-with easy ironies, weighty symbols, and portentous phrases.

Containing one of my favorite scenes of the entire year with the ‘soldier game’ and a masterclass in numerous aspects of filmmaking, including score and cinematography, this is one I will continue to go back to time and time again.

Pablo Larraín takes an outsider's view of an iconic public figure and gracefully shatters any illusion of what the public thinks of them.

Kristen Stewart disappears into her role as Diana, Princess of Wales, during a tense Christmas weekend in the early 1990s. Don't expect fireworks or theatrics — or much in the way of closure — but instead a subtle and effective character study.

Heartened by a career-defining turn by Kristen Stewart, Spencer shows the ephemerality of grandeur, the rigidity of aristocracy, and the enduring humanity of Diana.