In “Spencer,” Kristen Stewart Looks Back to Move Forward
Kristen Stewart’s performance in “Spencer” is a stunning rebuke to the dismissals that greeted her earlier in her career. The off-handed and flinty equations of Stewart’s talent with the ‘Twilight’ phenomenon and its subsequent backlash and the clichéd derision that mistook her once ubiquitous tabloid coverage as proof she was ‘one note’ or coasting on fame — such easy brush-offs were all forms of snobbery. You could make the case that the way Kristen Stewart was treated in the 2000s pop culture press and zeitgeist deserves as much interrogation as the recent reappraisals of the finger-pointing that shamed Britney Spears, Lindsay Lohan and Janet Jackson right out of their careers.
Miraculously, Kristen Stewart survived. The fact that she was raised in Hollywood and had the chance to see fame’s corrosiveness up-close; that she and the people close to her stepped over most of the ‘Twilight’ landmines; that she clearly has the drive to pursue acting and has an intelligent cineaste’s eclectic taste in film; perhaps the public candor about her evolving sexuality — all led her to make it intact to the tier of artistic respect she’s at now. Stewart works with challenging directors who partner with her to produce fierce, wide-ranging work. Her performances in “Personal Shopper” and “Clouds of Sils Maria” demonstrate the skill with which she can blend her…
