20 Best Films Of 2021

The world has been so thoroughly inundated with Princess Diana-related media over the last few years that one hopes Pablo Larrain's Spencer has basically had the last word on the late Royal - for a good while at least.

While marketed as a more straight-laced biopic, Spencer couldn't be more different from your typical drama based on the life of a real person.

Beyond tightly focusing the story on a pivotal period late in Diana's life, this is a far more surreal and reality-warping experience than many were surely expecting.

Larrain basically fashions Spencer as a horror film about the suffocating anxieties of being part of the Royal Family, what with its cloying obsession with appearances and etiquette, to say nothing of the media circus that follows Di wherever she goes.

Kristen Stewart is revelatory in a highly transformative performance that soars past any stunt casting potential to deliver a truly full-bodied rendition of a tragic real-life figure.

Short of a disaster, the Best Actress Oscar is hers for the taking.