Period drama adapted from Nikolai Leskov's novel Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District. Directed by Sundance Grand Jury Prize-nominee William Oldroyd.
"Lady Katherine (Florence Pugh) is a young misfit in the stifling social atmosphere of Victorian England. Locked in a marriage of convenience to a much older man, marooned on an estate amidst the northern heaths of County Durham, Katherine strains against the social mores of the time. Lectured at by the local priest, tormented by a father-in-law who expects her to provide an heir, she paces her constrictive world like a wild animal looking for escape. She soon finds an outlet for her passions in Sebastian (Cosmo Jarvis), a young groom who is one of her husband's many servants. Those passions could be their undoing." (Toronto International Film Festival)
Adapted from the 1865 novella by Russian author Nikolai Leskov, but transplanted to the UK’s bleak Northumberland moors, William Oldroyd's debut plays out like a Victorian Handmaid's Tale. The first scene shows young Katherine (Florence Pugh) married off to local landowner Alexander (Paul Hilton), her face completely wrapped in a wedding veil that looks more like a shroud.
Full reviewFlorence Pugh announces herself as a major talent to watch in William Oldroyd's impressively tough-minded Victorian tragedy.
Full reviewMadame Bovary meets Thérèse Raquin with a splash of Lady Chatterley in a pared-down drama that packs a real punch.
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This brilliantly feminist British indie film plunges a cold, sharp knife into the back of bonnet dramas.
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It could well open up a dark new avenue in the bonnets-and-bows world of classic literary adaptation.
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A powerfully austere nineteenth-century drama, and an uncompromising attempt to make that rare thing, a genuine British art film.
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Lady Macbeth mostly operates within established period conventions, but draws fresh blood from antique material thanks to a sparky cast, subtle nods to contemporary race and gender issues, and a hefty shot of gothic melodrama.
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This intelligently scripted and imposingly played costume noir revisits the conventions of Victorian melodrama to comment on modern attitudes to oppression, prejudice and morality.
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