Kristen Stewart is “incandescent”, “tender” and even “stunning” as Princess Diana, according to critics who have seen the new biopic Spencer.
The Twilight actress depicts the late princess over three days at Sandringham during Christmas 1991, before she separates from Prince Charles.
The Telegraph’s reviewer Robbie Collin said she “will be instantly and justifiably awards-tipped for this”.
It is a “resplendently mad, sad and beautiful” film, he said.
Spencer has been made by Pablo Larraín, who previously directed Natalie Portman to an Oscar nomination in Jackie, about another highly scrutinised female public figure, Jacqueline Kennedy.
The new movie is “thrillingly gutsy, seductive, uninhibited filmmaking”, Collin’s five-star review added.
Stewart “navigates this perilous terrain with total mastery, getting the voice and mannerisms just right but vamping everything up just a notch, in order to better lean into the film’s melodramatic, paranoiac and absurdist swerves”, he wrote.
“It is a bracing, bitter, moving, and altogether stunning turn, taking Diana down roads we have not seen played out quite like in this mesmerising portrayal.”
