One of my earliest childhood memories is being bundled into the backseat of the family Ford, after a trip to that uniquely Mid-American entertainment experience, the Drive-In Movie. With the motor purring softly as background noise, the only light coming from the soft green glow of the dashboard, and my parents speaking in hushed tones, all felt safe and secure.
Later when they had marital problems, that sense of safety became unmoored, and it seemed to me, an act of betrayal, and I had a strong sense of that feeling when I recently watched the masterful movie, “Spencer” with Kristen Stewart, in a role of the lifetime, as Princess Diana, and the betrayal that she felt with the infidelities of her husband Prince Charles, with Camilla Parker-Bowles.
Betrayal can be shattering, in any sense, but when it comes to a marriage the effects can drill down on every insecurity and threaten nearly all within reach, and then some, and home can become a prison, rather than a refuge.
While Diana’s story of being thrown into a public role, as the Princess of Wales, (with nearly no support, or advice), at an age when most girls have just left high school, is legend, but for my generation, it was also an emotional high: the wedding of the century, replete with the elegant facade of St. Paul’s Cathedral, its bells pealing, and Charles in a splendid military uniform, and the bride swathed in satin and silk emerging from a golden coach with the longest train, in recent memory, it seemed that all would be right in that marriage, and endearing even when Diana charmingly, and nervously, reordered Charles' names during her vows.
Already shattered from her parent’s divorce, at an early age, she longed for a secure home with a man to look after her, and her children. Little did she know that Charles, the headstrong heir to the throne of England, was not the best choice. And, little did he realize her burgeoning star power, and insecurity.
In this film we meet her ten years later frustrated with both her marriage, and the forced gaiety and regimen of royal life, epitomized with the traditional royal Christmas at Sandringham, a crown estate, with its equally traditional weight check at the start of the feasting, a tradition as old as the Christmas gathering, replete with every imaginable, and delectable food.
Her minor rebellions began by ditching the driver and driving herself to Sandringham, without a security detail, primes the audience for more to come. As she navigates the vast country landscape, in her zippy sportscar, she gets lost and asks aloud, “Where the fuck am I?” - saying more than her words convey.
The film details the dietary delights of the season, as green boxes arrive in military fashion, that initially seem to be coffins, (a death metaphor) puzzling the viewer, but later with lids open, only reveal the food that is to be prepared for the family, described by the chef in revered tones, quietly so as to not disturb the family.
The food itself is almost another character, as Diana struggles with what is expected of her, and in a far less spontaneous time, sees not only her anxiety rise, but her bulimia, as she tries and fails to cope with her elegantly planned appearances, and scheduled meals with the entire family; (often preceded by a face down over the toilet) the only joy is being in the company of her sons, William and Harry, who arrived before her.
Hunger takes on several meanings in this film: Diana’s hunger for love, then freedom for she, and her sons, from some nearly nonsensical, but meaningful exchanges the path ahead seems murky, even confusing, at times.
For example upon arrival, when DIana complains of the cold house, the Queen’s equerry says, “I will order more blankets,” as Diana murmurs ``why don’t you just turn up the heat?”
As we see later he does, with near constant surveillance of her every move.
Her lovely clothes are tagged for each meal, and outing, tagged as P.O.W. (circling in on the war metaphor) and it’s indicative of the downward spiral from betrayal, to fear to anxiety, to silent rebellion,as she wears them all out of order, sick as a parrot, as the scene with her pearl necklace, a gift from Charles, that he also gave to Parker-Bowles, shows.
Directed by Pablo Larrain, who also made “Jackie” that encapsulated her unwanted fame, and near imprisonment that Jacqueline Kennedy felt after the assassination of her husband, President Kennedy; this is a companion piece, but edgier than that equally episodic masterpiece, in the near drowning that this ill-fated marriage dealt to Diana’s psyche.
Her battered psyche encounters the ghost of Ann Boleyn, as she explores her shuttered childhood home, Park House, and that of her grandmother, before her father inherited the Earldom, and the move to the Althorp estate in 1975,
The boarded up home, the ghostly encounter, all jibe with her need for emotional security, as well as freedom from a bad marriage, and a royal regimen.
The theme of home also resonates with another masterwork of a film, “Belfast” that takes the Time of the Troubles in Northern Ireland, in the late 1960s and again the spirit of home, as little Billy plays securely in the streets, just before a Protestant mob, replete with bombs and gasoline threatens their Catholic neighbors, “You fuckers, get out of our neighborhood!”
Sectarian violence aside, the neighborhood is as much to Protestant Billy, and his family, as it is to the much maligned Catholics
With various scenes of dancing, biting Irish humor, that warms the soul as it nicks pretense, redolent of Director Kenneth Branagh’s childhood, shows the joys of home, with the contrast of who belongs in that home, Protestants, not Catholics with their sacrament of confession, a long held joke within the family.
Childhood is not always halcyon, but from a child’s point of view, home takes on a special place and Branagh gives his idea of home, not simply as a place of nurture, but also of identity, and as Dad struggles to play the bills and suggests that the family move, maybe to England, Bill breaks down at Christmas, in a meltdown of even the idea of losing his home to the bomb throwers.
Maybe Tom Wolfe was right when he said, “You can’t go home again,” and in some fashion, it seems that young Billy and his family realize that, replete with the elegiac Judy Dench as his grandmother, slowly climbing the steps at the film’s end, when the family finally departs for destination unknown - Scotland, Canada? - but by contrast, home might be the place that you can’t go back to, at least not in the immediate future, as Billy says farewell to a childhood crush.
Diana, on the other hand, seems to find a home, and freedom, as she roars off from Sandringham, with her two sons, in her top down convertible sports car, singing at the top of their lungs, “All you Need is a Miracle.”
Thank heaven for Mike and the Mechanics! And, KFC!
