Related: How Kristen Stewart Transformed Her Career After Twilight

Following Spencer's premiere at the Venice Film Festival, critic reviews have started to roll in. The bulk of critics are positive about the film, praising its straddling the line between campy and serious. Different elements have appealed to different reviewers, but one thing nearly everyone can agree on is Stewart's performance. Here are some selected quotes from the latest reviews:

Xan Brooks, The Guardian

Kristen Stewart proves entirely compelling in the title role. She gives an awkward and mannered performance as Diana, and this is entirely as it should be when one considers that Diana gave an awkward and mannered performance herself, garnishing her inbred posh hauteur with studied coquettish asides. When she broke down, lost her poise, it was like watching a Stepford wife throw a glitch. But Stewart effectively captures the agony of a woman so programmed and insulated that she feels she has no escape and has lost sight of who she is.

Owen Gleiberman, Variety

Kristen Stewart doesn’t just do an impersonation (though on the level of impersonation she’s superb). She transforms; she changes her aspect, her rhythm, her karma. Watching her play Diana, we see an echo, perhaps, of Stewart’s own ambivalent relationship to stardom — the way that she’ll stand on an awards podium, chewing her lip, reveling in the attention even as she’s slightly uncomfortable with it (and even as she makes that distrust of the limelight a key element of her stardom). Mostly, though, what we see in Stewart’s Diana is a woman of natural-born elegance, with a luminosity that pours out of her, except that part of her is now driven to crush that radiance, because her life has become a wreck.

Pete Hammond, Deadline

I can’t say enough about Stewart’s performance, steering from an impression of an impossibly well-chronicled figure to beautifully achieving the essence of who she was. It is a bracing, bitter, moving, and altogether stunning turn, taking Diana down roads we have not seen played out quite like in this mesmerizing portrayal.

Guy Lodge, Film of the Week

Casting Stewart, another reserved celebrity who knows the obsessive, overbearing glare of fandom better than most, is inspired. Her performance isn’t just a dully transformative feat of mimicry, though she’s paid detailed attention to Diana’s posture and posing, especially. Rather, it’s a wry, empathetic evocation of a woman somehow locked out of both her inner and outer lives, frozen in the corridor — before making a run for the fire escape.

Kevin Maher, Times UK

The Princess Diana story is given an art house makeover in this infuriating mixed bag, one that veers wildly from moments of dreamy intrigue to risible scenes of camp.

David Rooney, The Hollywood Reporter

It rests on Stewart’s shoulders and she commits to the film’s slightly bonkers excesses as much as to its moments of delicate illumination. The hair and makeup team has done a remarkable job at altering her appearance to fit the subject, even if this is a film in which the essence of the characters is given more weight than the actors’ resemblance to them. But Stewart’s finely detailed work on the accent and mannerisms is impeccable. The camera adores her, and she has seldom been more magnetic, or more heartbreakingly fragile.

Jason Solomons, The Wrap

Hinging (or unhinging) on a major performance from Kristen Stewart, the movie itself unfurls in a torrent of ideas and madness, some of it brilliant, some of it quite silly... [Stewart] gets the doe-eyed, pitying tilt of the head and the little posh girl voice down pretty well, but this is no impression — it’s more an interpretation of a classic role, bringing layers of real human complexity to a figure who, for all the mythology that surrounds her, still looms large in the British and global conscience.

While most American actors who take on big roles that require British accents tend to invite their fair share of derision (think Emma Stone in Spencer's impression of Princess Diana isn't necessarily meant to be pitch-perfect, but rather present the iconic figure as a living, breathing human character somewhat distinct from the royal who inspired her. This is certainly in line with Larraín's approach to Natalie Portman's Jackie Kennedy back in 2016.