Lady Macbeth (15.)
Directed by William Oldroyd.
Starring Florence Pugh, Cosmo Jarvis, Christopher Fairbank, Naomi Ackie and Paul Hilton. 93 mins.
On the night of her wedding Katherine (Pugh) is informed that her new home might be a little colder and more drafty than she is accustomed to. That's true enough; Lady Macbeth is the British costume drama will all the opulence and shine wiped clear. She lives a stifling life with her dull husband (Hilton) in the dreary, overbearing country pile in the North East they share with his dreary, overbearing father (Fairbank.) The pair of them are austere and joyless. She is chattel, part of a land deal. But in a severe case of buyer beware, she proves highly resistant to her passive role and is about to wreck their way of life.
Despite the title, the Eng Lit GCSE set text it most resembles is Wuthering Heights. Out on the wild and windy moors she rolls and falls into something very dark, a temper and jealousy too hot and too greedy. In movie terms it is like director Oldroyd has taken the cast and locations of Andrea Arnold's version of Wuthering Heights and given them a severe dressing down. There are no impressionistic flourishes here. Oldroyd mostly shoots with a static camera that mirror the rigours and restrictions of life then. A lot goes unsaid in this film but his framing and placement of the actors in that frame speak volumes.
The film successfully manages to transplant Russian literature – Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk District by Nikolai Leskov – to the realms of the British costume drama. Oldroyd directorial choices marry perfectly with the themes and he gets great performances from his cast. It is though a thoroughly bleak experience and at times our lead character, a Geordie girl who just wants to have fun, seems to have been beamed back in time to this drama.
Directed by William Oldroyd.
Starring Florence Pugh, Cosmo Jarvis, Christopher Fairbank, Naomi Ackie and Paul Hilton. 93 mins.
On the night of her wedding Katherine (Pugh) is informed that her new home might be a little colder and more drafty than she is accustomed to. That's true enough; Lady Macbeth is the British costume drama will all the opulence and shine wiped clear. She lives a stifling life with her dull husband (Hilton) in the dreary, overbearing country pile in the North East they share with his dreary, overbearing father (Fairbank.) The pair of them are austere and joyless. She is chattel, part of a land deal. But in a severe case of buyer beware, she proves highly resistant to her passive role and is about to wreck their way of life.
Despite the title, the Eng Lit GCSE set text it most resembles is Wuthering Heights. Out on the wild and windy moors she rolls and falls into something very dark, a temper and jealousy too hot and too greedy. In movie terms it is like director Oldroyd has taken the cast and locations of Andrea Arnold's version of Wuthering Heights and given them a severe dressing down. There are no impressionistic flourishes here. Oldroyd mostly shoots with a static camera that mirror the rigours and restrictions of life then. A lot goes unsaid in this film but his framing and placement of the actors in that frame speak volumes.
The film successfully manages to transplant Russian literature – Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk District by Nikolai Leskov – to the realms of the British costume drama. Oldroyd directorial choices marry perfectly with the themes and he gets great performances from his cast. It is though a thoroughly bleak experience and at times our lead character, a Geordie girl who just wants to have fun, seems to have been beamed back in time to this drama.
