Sunday 15 October 2023

Lady Macbeth (2016 William Oldroyd)

Based on a story by Nikolai Leskov, previously filmed as Siberian Lady Macbeth by Andrezj Wajda in 1962, here adapted by Alice Birch, who also worked on The Wonder (also Mothering Sunday, episodes of Normal People and Succession. The End we Start From is a 2023 film by Mahalia Belo.)

I don't know if I was meant to, but I found it blackly funny, in a dry, Kubricky way. I hoped Florence Pugh would do something against vile, vile husband Paul Hilton - she does, also bumping off his equally unspeakable father (Christopher Fairbank) and his illegitimate child, so she can have her wicked way with estate worker Cosmo Jarvis (Calm with Horses). The ending is a beauty. With Naomi Ackie, Golda Rosheuvel.

Photographed with naturalistic beauty again by Ari Wagner in Panavision.


Scenes of Cosmo sleeping on stone floors looks uncomfortable but ultra-realistic.

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