Cinema Prescription

Synopsis: In rural England, 1865, a young woman named Katherine is trapped in a loveless marriage to a much older man begins a passionate affair with a man her own age.
Cast: Florence Pugh, Cosmo Jarvis, Paul Hilton, Naomi Ackie, Christopher Fairbank
Screenplay: Alice Birch
Directed by: William Oldroyd

Based on a Russian short story by Nikolai Leskov (who took its title from the famous Shakespeare’s anti-heroine), LADY MACBETH is a malevolent narrative of sex, murder and female opression gone wrong. It’s a dark, slow-burning and psychotic turn of a female empowerment story. There are some racial and social class isues thrown in here too. Its quiet, and pretty claustrophobic atmosphere in half of the movie really adds the uneasiness mood this movie is going for.

Florence Pugh only had 1 movie and 2 TV roles before this, yet what she put on screen here really looks like she’s been doing acting for ages. From sympathetic at first, yet began to show her psychopathic side as the film went by. And she did this transformation flawlessly. Restrained, seductive and unforgiving, she’s in control from start to finish.

Though I personally didn’t really find the story that remarkable, and the static pace really threw me off in some occasions, watching this movie solely for Pugh’s performance made it quite worth it. But as a first debut feature film, William Oldroyd is pretty succesful in forming the bleak and restless ambience throughout the whole movie, making LADY MACBETH a wicked and deranged version of challenging gender and social norm. [B]

A copy of my review on Instagram.